Isaac Hertenstein from Greencastle, Indiana, awarded $15,000 from Prudential Financial at inaugural Emerging Visionaries Summit

PR Newswire

Isaac was among five Grand Prize winners honored this week by football legend Eli Manning and Prudential Chairman and CEO Charles Lowrey for his work addressing the challenges of a changing world.

NEWARK, N.J., April 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Isaac Hertenstein, 16, of Greencastle, Indiana, was among five young people named Grand Prize winners by Prudential Financial's Emerging Visionaries program at a four-day summit held this week at Prudential's Newark headquarters.

The Emerging Visionaries program is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the social entrepreneurship network Ashoka, with advisory support from the Financial Health Network. It honors young people ages 14-18 from across the United States for leading initiatives that result in fresh, innovative solutions to current-day financial and societal challenges.

"Supporting the efforts of these Emerging Visionaries is another way we are working to fulfill Prudential's purpose: to make lives better by solving the financial challenges of our changing world," said Prudential Chairman and CEO Charles Lowrey. "We're honored to celebrate the initiative, creativity and empathy of these young leaders, and look forward to seeing all the great things they accomplish in the future."

The 25 winners, named in February, each earned a $5,000 prize and an all-expenses-paid trip to this week's Emerging Visionaries Summit, plus a chance to win an additional $10,000. The summit included an awards ceremony where finalists were celebrated by special guests, including philanthropist and two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Eli Manning. The students also consulted with Prudential senior leaders on topics of strategy and impact and worked with Prudential employee coaches who helped them refine and advance their projects.

As part of the four-day event, five young people were selected to pitch their ideas for advancing financial equity to a panel of judges for a chance to win the additional $10,000 in funding for their initiative. Pitch-off judges included Lowrey, leaders from Ashoka and the Financial Health Network, and two program alumni.

The panel was intended to select one Grand Prize finalist from the five who pitched their projects. However, after hearing the pitches, the judges decided to award $10,000 to each of the five presenters, in recognition of the societal impact of their initiatives. In addition to the Grand Prize winners, Prudential employees voted this spring to name an Employees' Choice Award winner, who received an additional $5,000.

Indiana's 2022 Grand Prize winner:

Isaac Hertenstein, 16, of Greencastle
Isaac founded Students Teaching Finance, an initiative that empowers high school-aged changemakers to teach financial literacy to K-8 students and promote financial inclusion in his rural community. The program is modeled for students globally through its website and the initiative has an open-source curriculum, making it a collaborative creation. Isaac works to maintain and augment the inclusivity of the program's resources by tailoring lessons to a range of developmental levels and backgrounds.

In 2020, Isaac started this initiative after witnessing the stark wealth gap impacting his community firsthand. "The financial discrepancies in my community sickened me, and I pondered a potential solution," he explained. To date, "Students Teaching Finance" has brought its lessons to more than 325 students with all participants reporting that they are now more motivated to invest and save.

To learn more about Prudential Emerging Visionaries and all 25 winners, visit prudential.com/emergingvisionaries.

About Prudential Financial
Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial wellness leader and premier active global investment manager, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Prudential's diverse and talented employees help to make lives better by creating financial opportunity for more people. Prudential's iconic Rock symbol has stood for strength, stability, expertise and innovation for more than a century. For more information, please visit news.prudential.com.

About Ashoka
Ashoka is the largest global network of leading social entrepreneurs — individuals with new ideas to systemically address the world's biggest challenges and the entrepreneurial skill to transform those ideas into national, regional and global social impact. Over 40 years, Ashoka has supported more than 3,600 social entrepreneurs in 90 countries with solutions addressing society's most pressing issues. Ashoka's vision is a world in which Everyone is a Changemaker — a society that responds quickly and effectively to challenges, and where every individual has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem. For more information, visit ashoka.org.