Education
Harvard College; Harvard University.
founder trader Chief Executive Officer
Harvard College; Harvard University.
Von Tobel is the author of the New York Times bestseller Financially Fearless, which debuted on December 31, 2013. Originally from Florida, Von Tobel received an Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Harvard College. After graduation, she worked as a trader at Morgan Stanley before leaving to be the Head of Business Development at Drop.io.
Von Tobel came up with the idea for LearnVest in 2006 while working at Morgan Stanley when she realized she and most other people had never had any formal education about how to manage their personal finances.
In April 2009, Von Tobel closed a $4.5 million series A round of funding led by Accel Partners. To date, Learnvest has raised outside equity of $72 million, from investors including Accel Partners, AmericanExpress Ventures and Northwestern Mutual Capital.
On March 25, 2015, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, based in Milwaukee, announced it would acquire LearnVest. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The deal has been viewed as the latest attempt by traditional financial-services firms to adapt to new digital technologies.
Northwestern Mutual expects the technology will encourage more adviser-client interaction and ultimately create a more rewarding experience for the customer and adviser. By adding LearnVest’s technology to the insurer’s existing planning platform, those advisers can devote more time to working with customers on carrying out their recommendations. The arrangement also puts customers in more frequent contact with those advisers.
Von Tobel has been included in lists like Business Insider’s 2010 "Silicon Alley 100," Incorporated.
In April 2014, von Tobel was selected as an inaugural member of the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship, alongside Steve Case, Reid Hoffman, Tory Burch and others