All Episodes

November 6, 2023 • 12 mins

This week on Money Moves, we're excited to introduce our guest, Ross Mac. Hailing from the vibrant city of Chicago, Ross is an Ivy League graduate with a passion for making financial education accessible to all. After a successful career on Wall Street, he returned to his roots and launched 'Maconomics,' a digital content series that masterfully blends education and entertainment. His remarkable work has garnered recognition from Forbes, CNBC, and even Netflix. In this episode, Ross delves into how his affinity for mathematics paved his academic journey, underscores the invaluable role of exposure in education, and reveals how his return to Chicago sparked his mission to educate and empower his community.

Host IG:@itstanyatime

Guest IG: @imrossmac

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I ended up getting to see a lot of my
childhood friends that I grew up with, and what I
realized was we all took different paths. And what I
truly realized was that exposure is the greatest teacher. By
me being by me, going to pen, by me working
alongside you know, true one percent people. I started to
learn different things. Walking down my aisle. I'm seeing people
check their retirement account. I'm seeing two million dollars, you know,

(00:23):
in they're four to one K and they're forty years old.
I'm like, you know, what's going on? Okay, how do
I get there? Also? I need to be maxing that out.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech business
and more. I'm your host, angel investor, technology enthusiasts, and
media personality Tanya Sam. Each week, we talk with guests
who are making significant strides in their fields and learn

(00:51):
how they are making their money move. If you're someone
who's looking to make your money move, you're in the
right place, So open up your notes app and lock
us in because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth, and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media at Greenwood and

(01:14):
me on all things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked in to new episode. Hey, money Movers, Welcome
back to another episode of Money Moves. I'm your host,
Tanya Sam and this week we have a truly remarkable
guest joining us. Hailing from the vibrant city of Chicago,
he's an Ivy League graduate with passion for making financial

(01:35):
education accessible to all. After a successful career on Wall Street,
he returned to his roots and launched Macronomics, a digital
content series that's not only educational but also entertaining. His
work has garnered recognition from Ford, CNBC, and even Netflix.
He's on a mission to bridge the gap between Wall
Street and Main Street, and today he'll be sharing his

(01:56):
journey and insides with us Moneymovers. Please give a warm
welcome to Ross Mack.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Hey Ross, Hello, Hello, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, Welcome to Money Moves. I'm so excited to be
here with you and to hear more about your journey,
and of course for you to drop all sorts of
jewels and gems with our moneymover's audience. But I want
you to take us back, take us back to the
beginning of your journey into the world of finance and
financial education. And I want you to start even before
that with little Ross Mac. Did you know that you

(02:28):
would end up where you were? Did you know you
were going to be making your money move like this?
Tell us about little Ross Mac?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Well, what I'll say is when I started out, I
always had an entrepreneurial spirit. That started out in like
second third grade, when I was settling candy at school
and on a school bus. I hate you know what
I'm saying. I had some teacher hating asking was I
selling candy as part of a fundraiser? I'm like, baby,
just the United Negro College Fund, you know. So they

(02:56):
told me I couldn't sell it on school grounds unless
it was for a fundraiser. I was just trapping my
candy on my school bus. But at that at that point, right,
I think you learned very valuable lessons, right. You learned
about margin, you learn about you know, you know profit
overhead expenses or you know, obviously you know the material costs, right,
but also you know the importance of reinvesting, right, and

(03:18):
so ever since then, right, I've always had some type
of entrepreneurial spirit, whether it was throwing parties, I made
my own clothing line in high school cut here in college.
But what I will say is that my journey to
you know, working on Wall Street was kind of right place,
right time.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I didn't know much about it, I think, and I
say this often, right, your exposure really is the greatest teacher.
And you know, coming from the South side of Chicago,
I don't really know people that work on Wall Street.
I didn't know anybody that was trading stocks or you know,
hedge funds, et cetera. And so the right place, right
time was deciding on a by going to a college tour.
Never even heard of your pen, right, I think everybody

(03:56):
might have heard of Penn State on some you know,
sports stuff, but nobody really heard University of Pennsylvania, which
is a huge difference.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
My sister went there.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Which one do you pen ye shout out to he yeah.
So by going to the college tour, I was able
to see that they got the number one business school
that being warded. And for me growing up, I hated reading,
but I love math. Right, I was like, man, don't
call on me, teach you. I don't like reading, but
I love math. And so what I realized, I want

(04:26):
some type of career that's going to be math oriented.
And so, you know, by going to you Penn five
six percent Black, I say, the greatest thing there once
again is exposure, because I was exposed to kids literally
in my ECON class as a freshman when I got,
you know, shout out to the Chicago Urban League. I'm
sitting there with my two three as her computer, and
I'm sitting next to a kid in class who's day trading.

(04:49):
At that moment, I had never known anything about day trading,
barely knew about stocks, and at that moment that was
the greatest exposure that I had experienced because I asked them, bro,
what are you doing? This is in two thousand and eight,
and so obviously we're in a recession, this, that and
the third, and so I learned how to start investing.
I started up, I started and I opened up my

(05:10):
E trade portfolio with a thousand dollars. I asked my
econ professor. Yeah, I asked my econ professor, how should
I go about it? You know, what, what should I
start thinking about investing in?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
You know?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
The rest is history?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Right?

Speaker 1 (05:22):
My freshman summer interned on Wall Street. In fact, I
intern every summer on Wall Street from Morgan Stanley to
Barclays back to Morgan Stanley, and you know, I think
the rest is history.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay, A lot of things stand out to me in
this number one because you know, you said, hey, I
picked you Penn, and in our communities people were like
what what. Meanwhile, it's an IVY League school. Secondly, you're
talking about landing these like really important internships. How did you?
And I think we always talk about representation and seeing it,

(05:55):
you know, and it's such a fascinating thing to look
next door to you in this guy's trading in class
and you're like, what is that? Who was it that
sort of like woke you up to these opportunities? Wow?

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Great? I mean, once again, I'm gonna continue to say
right place, right time. Right. What's funny was I went
to a college fair when I was part of this
program called the Kapo League, and when I was in
high school and I went to a college fair and
I ended up meeting the recruiter for you Penn, and
I had already passed the deadline to apply, like early decision,

(06:28):
and I met him, made a great you know, I'm
in there in the suit. I'm you know, seventeen years old, sixteen,
seventeen years old and I'm in a suit, and I
made a great impression, and he told me, look still
apply early and just here's my business card, just facts
it over, what's your thing? And from there, you know,
like once again, rest is history. But I always say
right place, right time, because that was at that college fair.

(06:50):
And then another thing was there was a internship fair
at Penn and literally just stumbled across it and I
ended up meeting the people from Morgan Stanley shut Out
and it was a diversity program called the Richard B.
Fisher And just once again, right place, right time. I
had no idea what Wall Street was, and it was
literally one of the greatest opportunities from a kid from

(07:12):
Chicago working at one of the most prestigious firms.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Right right. Wow. I love this because you know, sometimes
I feel like young people or people out there listening
are like, well, where is it? How do I go
after it? You know, sometimes it is about being the
right place in time, but I also feel like you
got to go and chase these things down. So whether
or not it's like walking through campus or literally scouring
the internet in your city, Chicago, wherever you act to

(07:36):
be like where's an intern fair, where's a job fair?
Like that's stuff really converts.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, fact right, there's no shortage opportunities right when already
Internet is crazy, right, Like, if you're looking for a job,
there's no reason you shouldn't be on LinkedIn every day
just ye, you know, connecting and messaging and finding better ways.
Take a person out to coffee to understand their career,
right because most jobs, I want to say, like over
fifty percent of jobs are filed before you know they

(08:03):
even go to the Internet. They're not polst it. It's
you know, they're feeled by people knowing someone.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
And you know that's really funny because I want to
talk about that because you know, people always say, well,
it's nepotism, and you know, is it a race thing,
is it a gender thing? Will those jobs get filled
on the golf course? And like, I actually don't believe that.
I feel like if you put in the work, you
make the relationships, and sometimes those relationships take a long time.
Like you might hear someone on a podcast, send them

(08:29):
a note and be like, hey, you said this really
interesting thing like that Squeaky Reel really gets the grease
and LinkedIn is an amazing, amazing tool. But as I'm
going to stop you right there, because you, you know,
made the decision at one point to move back to Chicago,
and it seemed like it was actually a turning point
in your career. Can you tell us a little bit
more about how we're turning to your roots really influence

(08:50):
your path forward towards financial education and empowerment. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Well, see when I was when I was working at Morganstown,
i lived in New York, and that's a very fast
paced city, right, and so often you just keep your
head down and trying to get to your next you know,
to your goal. Right, I'm trying to get promoted and
I'm trying to do this, and I really kind of
lost touch with community because I'm you know, trying, my
head was down, I'm trying to grind and make it
to the next level. And when I moved back to Chicago, right, thankfully,

(09:17):
my head was down. I had a great job opportunity.
I was working at grosven Or Capital, a hedge fund
managed you know, over sixty billion dollars, and so I
learned a ton. But the thing was, I ended up
getting to see a lot of my childhood friends that
I grew up with, and what I realized was we
all took different paths. And what I truly realized was
that exposure is the greatest teacher. By me being by

(09:39):
me going to pen, by me working alongside you know,
true one percent people. I started to learn different things.
Walking down my aisle. I'm seeing people check their retirement account.
I'm seeing two million dollars, you know, and they're four
to one k and they're forty years old. I'm like,
you know, what's going on? Okay, how do I get there? Also,
I need to be maxing that out. I'm learning from
other people that I work with that oh dude, I

(10:01):
got an LLC for this. I'm writing off my dry
cleaning my suits, and this that and the third and
so what I you know what I mean? So exposure
really is the greatest teacher, and so by me coming
back to Chicago. One of my good friends was like, bro,
you got to start teaching me how you got to
where you at. Right, I don't know about investing, right,
I don't know this. I don't know that. If you
really my friend, I shouldn't have to travel, you know,

(10:21):
the paths that you travel in order to know the
knowledge that you know. And so funny enough, right, I
made music as well, and I went by the monica
of Wall Street rapper and you know it, right, And
so the crazy thing is, right, don't nobody really know
what Wall Street is? Or at that time they definitely didn't.
So what I started doing, you know, I started making

(10:42):
short form content. Back when Instagram only had up to
a minute videos. There was no TikTok, there was no reels,
no IGTV. All you could do was put up to
sixty seconds. And so what I wanted to do, let
me start being the Wall Street rapper by leaning heavy
on the Wall Street side. And so I wanted to
just start educating the community on things they need to know.
But I had to do it, you know, I had

(11:02):
to do it with a little flair to it. I
had to be the urban Jim Kramer, right, I had
to make you laugh while also pulling your guard down
to actually educate you. And so you know, I'm gonna
have some people call in, right, Jim Kramer, have a
middle aged suburban mom or dad call in about their
retirement account and should I own Pepsi or Coca Cola. Well,
I've got some people from the hood calling in to

(11:23):
my show, and you know it hit different. So that's
really how it started. I just started making amazing content
that resonated with the community, and I got a lot
of organic following, a lot of organic love, and that
led me to developing a partnership with Revolt TV.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If we helped you
make your money move, please share it with your community,
Subscribe and leave us a review on iHeartRadio and Apple podcasts.
Follow us on social media at Greenwood and visit us
at Gogreenwood dot com for more financial tips and remember
money movers, If this were everyone would do it. So
take the lessons you've learned from this episode and apply

(12:04):
it to your life. Money Moves is an iHeart radio
podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple
podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from, make sure
to tune in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and subscribe to
the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so that you

(12:25):
too can have the keys to financial freedom you so
rightly deserve. Until next time,
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.