Maddy Dychtwald | Award-Winning Author & Co-Founder of Age Wave

Maddy Dychtwald

Award-Winning Author & Co-Founder of Age Wave

Fee Range
$35,000
Travels From
San Francisco, California, United States

Maddy Dychtwald
Biography

Recently recognized by Forbes as one of the top fifty female futurists globally, Maddy Dychtwald has been deeply involved for more than 30 years in exploring all aspects of the age wave and how it's transforming the marketplace, the workplace, our world, and our lives. This has led her to become an internationally acclaimed author, public speaker, Wall Street Journal blogger, and thought leader on longevity, aging, the new retirement, and the ascent of women.

A successful entrepreneur, Maddy co-founded Age Wave, the world's leader in understanding and addressing the far-reaching impacts of our aging population. The Age Wave team has worked with more than half of the Fortune 500 in industries ranging from healthcare and medical technology to financial services and consumer products.

With women at the forefront of the longevity revolution, Maddy has deeply explored their specific longevity-related wants, needs, and challenges. She has led numerous acclaimed studies on women and money, including the landmark Women, Money and Power sponsored by Allianz and, most recently, Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In addition, she has been involved in more than 25 thought leadership research studies worldwide on aging, longevity, retirement, health, family, caregiving, housing, and leisure, which have cumulatively garnered more than twelve billion media impressions.

She is the author of three books, Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy (voted Book of the Year by the National Community Colleges Association), Influence: How Women's Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, and the children's/young readers' book Gideon's Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings. Currently she is working on a new book, Women's Longevity Bonus, that combines her professional and personal passions.

As a member of The Wall Street Journal's Expert Panel on Retirement, Maddy's posts on leadership, wealth management, and financial planning have topped the most-read lists for their categories in 2017 and 2018. Currently, she serves as the national co-spokesperson for an in-depth investigation on The Four Pillars of the New Retirement: What a Difference a Year Makes sponsored by Edward Jones. Her insights and research have been featured in prominent media outlets, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Newsweek, Time, Fox Business News, CNBC, and NPR.

Having watched both her mother and mother-in-law battle dementia, Maddy is committed to eradicating this horrific disease. She is a co-founder of the non-profit Women Against Alzheimer's and serves as a board member of the non-profit BrightFocus Foundation, which funds cutting-edge research to cure diseases of the brain and eye.

A working mom for much of her adult life, Maddy is now an empty nester. She is passionate about her family as well as about longevity as both a demographic phenomenon and her personal journey. She and her husband Ken were recently awarded the prestigious Esalen Prize for their outstanding contributions to advancing the human potential of aging men and women worldwide.

Maddy Dychtwald
Featured Videos

Current: Maddy Dychtwald - The Misalignment Between Lifespan and Healthspan

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More Videos From Maddy Dychtwald

Maddy Dychtwald - The Misalignment Between Lifespan and Healthspan
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Maddy Dychtwald - Is There a New Definition of Retirement?
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Ageless Aging with Maddy Dychtwald
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Speaking Reel
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Maddy Dychtwald
Featured Keynote Programs

Women & Financial Wellness
Beyond the Bottom Line

The growing financial power of women may be the most important demographic trend impacting financial services today. New generations of empowered women—bolstered by unprecedented levels of education, workforce participation, rising geopolitical power, and escalating income and wealth—are assuming increasingly influential roles in their own and their family’s financial management. The financial services industry, historically catering primarily to men, must find new ways to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of this critical and growing client base.

Drawing on insights from decades of Age Wave research, including the highly acclaimed nationwide study Women & Financial Wellness and her landmark book, Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Change Our World for the Better, Age Wave co-founder Maddy Dychtwald combines data and powerful storytelling to address these topics:

How greater longevity can catalyze women of all ages to plan for their longer lives
How a woman’s life journey is still fundamentally different than a man’s with vast financial implications
How family interdependencies impact women and their approach to money
Unpacking the gender retirement gap
Defining the lifetime pay gap and wealth gap: what they are, how they’re different, and the steps women can take right now to make up for them
The important role men can play in this new financial equation
The 5 critical characteristics women look for in their financial professional and the 5 steps financial professionals can take to more effectively meet women’s wants, needs, and goals

Deeply researched, customized for each unique audience, and packed with actionable takeaways, Maddy’s illuminating approach to these urgent issues brings new focus to a topic that grows more relevant each day, leaving audiences—whether they be women wanting to take charge of their own financial security or the financial professionals who want to better serve them—with food for thought and concrete ideas for implementing and adapting to change.

The New 50+ Woman
A Consumer Force to Be Reckoned With

50+ women as a consumer force have been hiding in plain sight, but that is about to change. Bolstered by unprecedented levels of education and workforce participation, escalating income and wealth, and rising longevity and vitality, they are fast becoming the most powerful and influential segment of the consumer marketplace. Yet they often feel ignored or misunderstood by brands and marketers and don’t want to be defined through a youth-focused gender lens or by their age alone.

Drawing on decades of proprietary Age Wave research, including the highly acclaimed study led by Age Wave co-founder Maddy Dychtwald, Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line, and insights from her landmark book, Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Change Our World for the Better, Maddy explains why 50+ women are a consumer force to be reckoned with for businesses of all kinds from financial services and healthcare to fashion and home furnishings.

From her vantage point as a successful entrepreneur, author, researcher, Wall Street Journal blogger, wife and mother—and a 50+ woman herself—Maddy combines data-driven insights with inspirational storytelling, illuminating this market segment’s core attitudes, motivations, and behavioral patterns, and offering the keys to unlocking its consumer potential.

Topics explored in this new presentation include:
The size and financial clout of this growing market segment
The consumer purchasing power and passions of this market, including their approach to spending, gifting, saving, and investing
How 50+ women are disrupting aging, leading the longevity revolution
The emotions, desires, and concerns that motivate their purchasing decisions
The ageist messaging that turns them off—and how to avoid these communications pitfalls
How technology and social media can be both a barrier and a benefit
How today’s different generations of women influence each other and their purchasing decisions
The five-step action plan you need to capture this powerful market segment

Deeply researched, customized for each unique audience, and packed with actionable takeaways, Maddy’s illuminating approach brings new focus to this emerging market segment and leaves audiences with food for thought and concrete ideas for implementing and adapting to change.

The Future of Retirement
New Timing, New Purpose, New Funding-and New Planning Help Needed

With the convergence of rising longevity, the aging of the massive Boomer generation, and widespread financial insecurity stemming from the COVID pandemic, there is a greater need than ever for trusted, holistic financial guidance. Americans want financial professionals who seek to understand what matters most to them and their families and can help them achieve their goals.

This new presentation draws on cutting-edge new research that spans five generations. Maddy will outline the most important questions in retirement planning today and explain how financial professionals can demonstrate greater empathy to safeguard a well-lived retirement by providing targeted solutions for these uncertain times.

Topics to be covered include:
Why has financial peace of mind become far more important than wealth?
What are the greatest worries in achieving a financially secure retirement?
How could “generational generosity” jeopardize retirement?
In what ways is women’s rising financial power transforming the field of retirement planning?
How will the demands of eldercare, sibling care, grandparenthood, singlehood, and “rehirement” impact retirement planning?
Leaving a legacy: managing the greatest generational hand-off in history

The Rise of History’s Biggest Untapped Market–It’s Hiding In Plain Sight!

Men and women over 50 now make up 33% of the total U.S. population and 44% of the adult population but control more than 70% of total wealth. Due to the combination of rising longevity, declining fertility, and the aging of the Baby Boom generation, this group is now bigger than the entire market of most countries. As active and curious consumers, they are responsible for 53% of all food and grocery purchasing; 55% of all travel and leisure consumption; 56% of new car and truck purchasing; 68% of OTC drugs and 77% of all Rx drug consumption; and 78% of all retirement accounts. However, people 50+ only appear in 15% of advertisements and are disproportionately portrayed as old, sick, and homogenous.

Maddy will explain how to best target this massive, misunderstood, misrepresented, and wildly untapped new market. She’ll illustrate why 20th century notions of “lifetime brand loyalty,” “retirement,” and “seniors” have become obsolete and how with impending breakthroughs in precision medicine, living to 100+ will soon become commonplace. And she’ll provide a mind-stretching preview of the products, services, marketing, and advertising that will succeed at meeting the needs and aspirations of this new “Third Age” while eliminating the ageism that has impeded shareholder value for too long.

Maddy Dychtwald
Featured Books

Ageless Aging: A Woman's Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespanby Maddy Dychtwald

Ageless Aging: A Woman's Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan

by Maddy Dychtwald

A holistic plan based on cutting-edge science designed to help women take advantage of medical, psychological, and spiritual tools to feel younger for longer.
 
We are in the midst of a longevity revolution. And that is particularly true for women:

  • Women can expect to live five years longer than men.
  • A 50-year-old woman can expect to live another 35 years, on average.
  • Women comprise 80% of centenarians, the fastest growing segment of the world’s population.

 
But despite these incredible statistics, women are not living well. Women typically spend the last 14 years of their lives in a cascade of health issues. And while current research suggests that some 70 to 90% of your health and longevity is under your control—rather than at the mercy of your genes—the reality is that most women are not taking advantage of the measures that could lead to a longer and happier life.
 
Ageless Aging presents a pioneering new way for women to age—an ascent that includes feeling youthful and vital while gaining wisdom, resilience, and experience. It provides a holistic, actionable plan that will help women make use of all the tools available to them as they grow older.
 
Women need a trusted resource to help them thrive as they age. Internationally acclaimed author and thought leader Maddy Dychtwald is the perfect guide. Maddy has her finger on the pulse of all the latest research, science, and information about longevity and aging, as well as the specific issues facing women. She understands that Ageless Aging is a complex process, that the various pieces of the puzzle work synergistically, and with this book she shows you how to create your best future self by taking control of the aging process.

Gideon's Dream: A Tale of New Beginningsby Maddy Dychtwald

Gideon's Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings

by Maddy Dychtwald

Gideon goes to work high up in the trees, day in and day out. But one day something remarkable happens—the leaf he is working on breaks free of the tree, taking Gideon on its flight. At first Gideon is terrified, but as he glides gracefully through the air, his fear turns into sheer joy. What a rush it is to fly! After he lands, Gideon just can't get the experience out of his head. He dreams of once again soaring through the air and feeling so free. Will Gideon's dreams of flying ever come true, or is it just too late?

Written by some of America's most visionary thinkers, Gideon's Dream is the story of one remarkable transformation. This inspirational tale shows that growth and change are forever a part of life and that it's never too late to follow your dreams.

Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buyby Maddy Dychtwald

Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy

by Maddy Dychtwald

We are at the beginning of a new era, a lifestyle revolution that will transform who we are and what we do, as people and as consumers. The predictable linear, chronological life pathways of past generations -- from school, to marriage, to work, to children, to retirement -- made sense when the average human life span was shorter. Now, life expectancy has soared to age seventy-seven and promises to rise further, and we are starting to make decisions based less on age and more on lifestyle and life stage. Maddy Dychtwald, a leading expert on generational marketing, offers a radical new view of how Americans live, work, and buy according to the new freedoms and responsibilities of our shifting age demographics, and the staggering implications for the marketplace, the workplace, and our lives. Longer, healthier lifetimes have resulted in a dramatic change in the way we perceive our options. Highly educated and independent men and women are finding adventure, challenge, connection, and a sense of purpose at all ages. People now return to school at age thirty-five, have children at forty-five, start new careers at fifty, remarry at seventy. This cyclic approach to life, Dychtwald observes, has begun to replace the old linear path. Drawing on her studies of demographics, Dychtwald examines how age is becoming less and less of a determining factor in our choices, and less relevant to how we are defined in our own eyes and by society at large. She brings into focus the wealth of opportunities opened up by the new cyclic approach. Providing examples of pioneers on nonlinear life paths, the author explores increasingly widespread phenomena such as lifelong learning, serial careers, the revamped institutions of marriage and the family, expanded recreational pursuits, healthy aging, and "nonretirement."Based on her years of experience in generational marketing, Dychtwald also investigates how companies might best respond to the ways our new lifestyles are reshaping the workplace and the economy. How can a business satisfy and profit from the new ageless consumer? How can companies benefit from a cyclic workforce? For individuals and companies alike, Dychtwald's groundbreaking book will open up exhilarating new possibilities.

Influenceby Maddy Dychtwald

Influence

by Maddy Dychtwald

In the United States and in very many nations around the world, women are on the cusp of new financial power -- and evidence suggests that women will use this power to improve society in ways we can only begin to imagine. Through candid interviews and lively reporting, and with exclusive research, Dychtwald reveals a huge cultural transformation that is about to occur -- a true tipping point -- after which more children may have quality health care and education, workplaces may be more responsive to families, men may experience new freedoms and opportunities to pursue more meaningful careers, and more corporations and nations will be led by women, and they will thrive.

Dychtwald and Larson give us a sneak peek at the world turned right-side-up by women. To read this book is to prepare oneself for an altered -- and improved -- way of life.

Maddy Dychtwald
Featured Reviews

Maddy Dychtwald
Featured Articles & Resources

Why women should plan for the '100-year life': Expert

According to a Bankrate survey, a staggering 47% of adults believe that money has a negative impact on their mental health, with 51% of those respondents being women. To delve...
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A Vision of a Future Free of Alzheimer's

It is the year 2025 and it seems like a miracle reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s moonshot. A multi-modality cure for Alzheimer’s disease was recently discovered, fast-tracked...
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Why Many Retirees Are Upsizing Into Larger Homes

When my husband Ken and I were raising our children, one of our mantras was to instill both roots and wings in our children: strong roots so they would value home and...
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Five Ways to Control the Aging Process

What is one element of growing older that has surprised me? Control. You may think you don’t have much, but all of us have more control than we think in terms of our own aging...
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