Our founder, Dr. Natalia V. Smirnova, is an economist and educator. She started YouCount! as a platform for helping communities bring responsible financial literacy agenda and financial inclusion to underserved populations, K-12 system, and broader audiences.

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Natalia has more than twenty years of experience in the field of economics and economic education. She is currently a member of the Economics faculty at the University of Connecticut. 

 

After working as an economist for the City of New York at the Office of Management and Budget, she was a tenured Associate Professor of Finance at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, New York, and subsequently the Director of Education at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), a not-for-profit think-tank in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Throughout her career, Dr. Smirnova has developed successful educational programs and implemented them in diverse settings.

 

The common thread in Natalia’s work is her passion for teaching economic and financial literacy. She has helped scores of students, many teachers, and families become knowledgeable about basic financial concepts and take an informed approach to financial decision-making.