A talk show about our biggest taboo.

Money is harder to talk about than sex, mental health, or politics. To normalize it and combat rampant social media misinformation, we teamed up with money expert Vivian Tu (Your Rich BFF, former Wall Street trader) and a superstar lineup of guests to talk about their money mistakes and triumphs — holding open the door for our viewers to find success, too.

The challenge

Modernize a dated Twitter Live format featuring our on-staff financial planners, increase viewership, and position SoFi as a culturally relevant financial authority.

My role

  • Conceive and showrun a new talk show/video podcast, including:

    • Developing a unique subbrand

    • Influencing guest selection strategy

    • Guiding an internal team of writers

    • Actually directing episodes

    • Overseeing post-production.

The results

  • Over 30 full-length episodes (roughly 20-40 minutes apiece) and counting, released biweekly on SoFi’s YouTube channel

  • Multiple 9:16 short-form cutdowns for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok, distributed across the channels of SoFi, Your Rich BFF, and our guests

  • On SoFi’s TikTok alone, 100M+ cumulative views with the average video averaging 1M views apiece

  • SoFi’s YouTube following grew from <30K subscribers to >200K, earning us a famed Silver Play button from YouTube: the first brand in the entire financial services category to do so

SELECTED FEATURES

All full-length episodes are live on SoFi’s YouTube channel.

Here’s a small selection of my favorites.

Season Four

LaLa Anthony, Emma Hernan, Emma Grede, Nick Lachey, Allyson Felix, Common, Shaun White, and Doctor Mike

Season Three

Gabby Douglas, Venus Williams, Allison Holker, Padma Lakshmi, Anthony Ramos, Yara Shahidi, Adrienne Bailon-Houghton, Tony Hawk, Sazan Hendrix, and Cameron Brink

Season Two

Amanda Kloots, Brynn Whitfield, Shams Charania, Airrack, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Kristen Kish, Laura Wasser, Arlan Hamilton, Brad Goreski, and Kellie Girardi

Season One

Vivian Tu, Karamo, Corporate Natalie, Chrishell Stause, Elaine Welteroth, and Ally Love

Next up: season 5, coming in 2026.

creative direction, directing

Created in house at SoFi, with production by Derby Studio (EP Stephan Bielecki & Producer Christian Luedke, and an incredibly talented recurring crew).

Lead SoFi team S1

ECD: Jonathan Woytek / GCD and Director: Jackie Linayao / ACD: Chris Ryan / Producers: Moriah Grant, Desiree Afuye / Senior Editor: Adam Nielsen / Motion Graphics: Matt Cho / Copy Editor: Mark Sweeney / Strategy, Talent, PR: Margaret Furth, Amanda Cuoco, Sophia Yannopoulos

Lead SoFi team S2

ECD: Jonathan Woytek / GCD and Director: Jackie Linayao / ACD: Chris Ryan / Producer: Moriah Grant / Sr. Art Director: Katy Wells / Copywriter: Kaelee Butner / Senior Editor: Adam Nielsen / Motion Graphics: Matt Cho / Copy Editor: Mark Sweeney / Strategy, Talent, PR: Margaret Furth, Amanda Cuoco, Emily Pagano, Hanin Sukayri

Lead SoFi team S3

ECD: Jonathan Woytek / GCD and Director: Jackie Linayao / ACDs and Co-Directors: Kelly Bonner, Alex Anderson / Producer: Moriah Grant / Sr. Art Director: Katy Wells / Copywriters: Kaelee Butner, Kai Fields / Editor: Hannah Hughes / Motion Graphics: Matt Cho / Copy Editor: Mark Sweeney / Strategy, Talent, PR: Margaret Furth, Amanda Cuoco, Emily Pagano, Jade Ye, Amy Leigber, Hanin Sukayri

Lead SoFi team S4

ECD: Jonathan Woytek / GCD and Director: Jackie Linayao / ACDs and Co-Directors: Kelly Bonner, Alex Anderson / Producer: Moriah Grant / Sr. Art Director: Katy Wells / Copywriter: Morgan Thompson / Editor: Hannah Hughes / Motion Graphics: Natalie So / Copy Editor: Mark Sweeney / Strategy, Talent, PR: Margaret Furth, Amanda Cuoco, Emily Pagano, Jade Ye, Amy Leigber, Hanin Sukayri, Jess Haro-Rodriguez