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Graphic Design. Creative Direction and Consulting. Branding. Illustration. Creative Thinking. 

I currently serve as the Creative Director for FinCon, creating all print materials, signage, and staging for the event.

Emily Guy Birken is a former educator, a respected personal finance blogger, and an expert on retirement. Her background in education allows her to make complex financial topics relatable and easily understood by the layperson. She is the author of two books, The 5 Years Before You Retire, and Choose Your Retirement. Her work has appeared on the sites PTMoney, Wise Bread, Money Ning, Huffington Post, and Business Insider, as well as Kiplinger’s, MSN Money, and The New York Times online. She has also appeared on the Wisconsin Public Radio program Central Time hosted by Rob Ferrett and on The Chad Slagle Show on the CBS affiliate KMOV in Saint Louis.

Emily has a Bachelor's Degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing from Kenyon College, and a Master's Degree in English Education from The Ohio State University.

Kali Hawlk loves all things related to branding, messaging, and inbound marketing. She currently serves as the Director of Marketing at XY Planning Network, and is a freelance writer passionate about using her skills and knowledge to help others make, do, and create more.

Kali currently works as a contributing writer for a variety of publications, including The Huffington Post, Tech Cocktail, Investopedia, Mint, Staples, ADP, Discover, Uber, Trulia, Student Loan Hero, and MyBankTracker. She’s been featured as a financial expert for Millennials in many online publications including Forbes, Fast Company, US News, and Mashable.

The Debt Free Divas is the brain child of three contemporaries who observed a gap in the great personal finance information available and its reach and appeal to cosmopolitan urbanites. We all have access to an enormous amount of financial literacy information - but 76% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck.

Using a mix of online tools and offline, in-person events the Debt Free Divas are working hard to cultivate a community who supports, encourages, and motivates one another on to shared goals. We're keeping the personal finance conversation in the forefront to minimize the chance that others suffer in silence, too ashamed to seek financial help in times of need.

I'm a motivated, detail-oriented, disciplined and time-management pro. I've written on a variety of topics--gifts, etiquette, back-to-school shopping, business, philanthropy, education and saving money for consumer magazines (Parade.com, NowU from Gannett, Good Housekeeping) as well as custom content creators (Rodale, American Express Publishing, among others). Clients have included Panera Bread, Liberty Mutual, Sallie Mae, Proctor & Gamble, the American Cancer Society and more.

I've also acted as the top editor at Woman's Day Special Interest Publications, Modern Bride (interim executive editor) and Street Scenes, the alumni publication for The Bank Street College of Education. Most recently I shared my editing and writing expertise with Arcadia University.

I've built my lifestyle expert platform via my Suddenly Frugal blog as well as my two frugal-living books: "Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier and Healthier on Less" and "Toss, Keep, Sell: The Suddenly Frugal Guide to Cleaning Out the Clutter and Cashing In," both from Adams Media. This is in addition to the dozen books I've written on weddings, gifts and etiquette.

I'm also a seasoned spokesperson and have completed national media tours (TV and radio) for Bank of America, Palmolive, Build a Bear Workshop, Starbucks, Walmart, Chase and Jell-O among others. Since 2013 I've been HomeAdvisor's financial expert. I've also appeared on "Wake Up with Al," "Good Morning America," "Good Day New York" and CNN, along with the major affiliates in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles. You can view my TV highlights reel below. Recently, I've taken my years of media experience to create a unique media training program for companies, writers, bloggers, authors and others.

Specialties: consumer and lifestyle topics, custom content, content marketing, special sections, white papers, media training, CMS, WordPress, blogging, on-camera work, editing and grammar police.

Holly Johnson is an award winning writer and frugality expert with a focus on credit cards and optimized living. You can find her words and works on sites like U.S. News and World Report, The Simple Dollar, Credit Karma, Frugal Travel Guy and Get Rich Slowly. Holly is also the founder and lead writer of her own websites, Club Thrifty and Travel Blue Book.