Host of CNBC’s The Suze Orman Show

Named by Forbes as one of the Most Influential Women in Media

Author of six consecutive New York Times best sellers

When you think about financial advice from somebody on television, on radio, or in print, one of the first names that comes to mind—if not the first—is Suze Orman. You can see her on her own show on CNBC, on PBS raising money and giving motivational speeches, or visiting Oprah to offer financial guidance and give away free copies of her latest book on controlling your financial life.

But you may be one of those people who don’t get Suze’s popularity. You may not understand the allure of a TV show where she asks people whether they can afford a new car or a trip to the beach this summer.

It may not make sense to you why she:

• Has written six straight best sellers on managing your financial life.

• Is considered the biggest fund raiser on PBS.

• Is a frequent guest on Oprah.

• Has won two daytime Emmy Awards.

• Has won six Gracie Allen Awards.

• Was named by Forbes as one of the Most Influential Women in Media.

• Was picked by Time as one of the World’s Most Influential People.

Let me explain her appeal. I learned it after getting to know her at CNBC. As an anchor on a daily basis I interviewed, on the one hand, money managers who would tout their latest approach to picking the right stocks. They would back-test their investment theories, prove their approaches were successful with charts and numbers that added or divided this into that, and generally impressed you with the most sophisticated discussion of financial investing you can imagine. On the other hand, there was Suze.

Suze Orman’s appeal is simple: She’s not Wall Street!

Suze doesn’t look at Wall Street as the answer; she sees it as the problem.

Suze does’nt believe you should put your happiness in the hands of people you shouldn’t trust. And it’s not like she doesn’t know the folks on Wall Street, because she used to be a stockbroker and financial adviser herself. She knows all about it because she’s seen it up close, and she’s here to tell you: Look out!

In fact, for many years, as the stock market ascended what became a bubble waiting to be burst, she was practically a lone voice telling you that stockbrokers and money managers do not have your best interests at heart. Says Suze,

Those people don’t even know what to do with their own money. They might be good salespeople, but they don’t know how to invest. They’re nothing more than puppets for the brokerages.

A strange perspective, you might think, for a former stockbroker. But it was precisely that experience that stoked her fire for the little guy.

“It was 1983,” she recalls. “I had worked for Merrill Lynch for three years. I had sold millions and millions of dollars of Baldwin United’s annuity, and I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever seen.”

But then the financial newspapers started talking about the financial trouble Baldwin United was having. Suze recalls the stock falling from $62 to $2. As the stock was falling, she would go into her sales manager’s office expressing her concerns and he would say, “Oh, Suze, please, we have a buy rating on the stock.”

It turned out Baldwin United was, indeed, in trouble. It went belly-up. And all her clients were about to lose their money. She says:

That pissed me off because they lied to me! So I made sure that as many clients as would do it became part of class action lawsuit in the state of California against all the brokerage firms. The good news is the suit was won and eventually all the people got their money back.

Suze relishes that kind of story. She likes to fight for the regular person. Her advice on investing is not about impressing you with charts and graphs and complex concepts that have been back-tested and are waiting for you to jump on.

Her advice is direct and simple. “People first, then money, then things,” she says. And while she knows the world is full of Wall Street types who will try to get your money, she wants you to take control of your own investing future.

She made unofficial history on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009 by allowing people to download her book, Women and Money, free from Oprah’s web site for 33 hours. More than one and a half million copies were downloaded.

Suze Orman’s Best Mistake, in Her Own Words

My biggest mistake was also my best mistake. I vvas working at Prudential Bache. And there was a woman who was a financial consultant. She vvasn’t making it.

The manager at the time came to me—I was a vice president of investments. He said, “Suze, can you just take her on as your assistant? Maybe she could do something for you so we don’t have to let her go, and we’ll work out a deal.” And I said okay, because I was doing a serious amount of business and I did need help.

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So I took her on even though I didn’t like her. I never liked her. But I didn’t listen to my gut. I was being a woman helping out another woman.

Then I decided to leave Prudential Bache and go on my own because it was ridiculous that I was giving them 60 percent of all my commissions when I was bringing in all the clients. I was the one doing everything; it was just nuts.

So I found the space, I had it decorated, and I was about to leave Prudential, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell this person that I didn’t like her, I didn’t want her to come with me, and I didn’t trust her. I didn’t have the courage to tell her, so I brought her over.

We opened my firm on May 2, 1987. On June 22, I walked into my office, and this person had come into my office at one A.M. and ripped off every single file that I had. She directed the commissions to her. We had a lot of clients, and the way it was set up was that I would see the clients and tell them what to do, and they would then go into her office and she would make the investments with them and sign the contracts under her name. When the commission checks came in, she would deposit them into the office account (they were made out to her since she signed the contract), and I would get 80 percent of those commissions and she would get 20 percent—that’s the deal we struck.

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The night after she came in and stole all the records of the clients, she also called the firm that was paying us the commissions and she instructed them to send those commissions checks to her at her home address. And there was nothing I could do about it since her name was on the contracts. She did everything she could to steal the business right out from under me.

That’s when I learned that I should never talk myself into trusting anyone—that I should trust myself more than I trust others.

I knew in my gut that she was trouble, and I just did not listen to my gut. I did not trust myself enough to just follow what I felt. I kept talking myself into trusting her when I knew from the start I should not.

Because I took the chicken way out, I ended up screwing myself. And that was the biggest mistake I ever made that led to the best lesson that I have stuck with to this day. Now if somebody enters my life and I sense they’re not good, they’re out of there in two seconds.

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I trust myself more than I trust others.

About Suze Orman

Suze Orman has been called “a force in the world of personal finance” and “a one-woman financial advice powerhouse” by USA Today. A two-time Emmy Award-winning television host, New York Times mega best-selling author, magazine and online columnist, writer/producer, and one of the top motivational speakers in the world today, Orman is undeniably America’s most recognized expert on personal finance.

Orman is a contributing editor to O: The Oprah Magazine and the Costco Connection magazine, and for the past eight years has hosted the award-winning Suze Orman Show, which airs every Saturday night on CNBC. Over her television career Suze has accomplished what no other television personality ever has before. Not only is she the single most successful fund-raiser in the history of public television, but she has also garnered an unprecedented six Gracie Allen Awards, more than anyone in the 34-year history of this prestigious award. The Gracies recognize the nation’s best radio, television, and cable programming for, by, and about women.

In October 2008 Orman was the recipient of the National Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign. In 2008 and 2009 Time magazine named Orman as one of the Time 100, the World’s Most Influential People. In April 2008 Orman was presented with the Amelia Earhart Award for her message of financial empowerment for women, and Saturday Night Live spoofed Suze three times during 2008.

Orman, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, earned a bachelor’s degree in social work at the University of Illinois, and in 2009 received an honorary doctorate degree. At the age of 30, Suze was still a waitress making $400 a month.