Iona Bain Keynote Speaker

Iona Bain is an award-winning financial journalist and Founder of Young Money Blog.

Her beginnings in finance begun when her savings were burgled from her piggy bank and she was forced to confront the importance of money. Following this, Iona founded Young Money Blog in 2011 to help her generation understand their finances by offering helpful analysis of the financial issues they may face. Her invaluable advice has led her to work with the BBC on programmes including NewsNight, Question Time and The One Show. She is also Radio 1’s Money Hacker in residence for the flagship advice programme ‘Life Hacks’ and is also resident financial expert on BBC Morning Live.

She writes a weekly column for the i paper and is a contributor to the Financial Times. Other features include in The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Independent and the New Statesman.

Iona is also a leading figure of online youth and female-focused media, with further recent contributions to VICE UK, British Vogue and Refinery 29. Her book, ‘Own It’ outlines how young people can invest their way to a better future.

Iona is proud of her educational work, having collaborated with BBC Bitesize to produce a series of educational videos and worked with Lloyds Banking Academy on the Your Future Finances initiative. She is also the youngest ever governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.

Despite being a financial expert, Iona recently revealed that she has dyscalculia which is a diagnosed severe difficulty in making arithmetical calculations as a result of a brain disorder. Her motivation to overcome this has been praised across the country.