With a thousand-watt smile and a look that turns heads, Kenneth K. Wilson is fierce, fabulous…and a financial whiz. Wilson is a lead financial advisor with Unicorn Wealth Solutions, associated with Northwestern Mutual, whose mission is to help the community prepare for a secure financial future. We chatted about financial advising, creative passions like drag and art, and numerous professional pursuits. Some responses have been edited for length or clarity.
Are you a Philly person originally?
No, I’m from North Jersey. I grew up there, and lived there for most of my life, did a stint in Florida, a year in California, when I started college, and then back to New Jersey, up until about a year ago.
That’s right. I think you know my cousin, Kaylah Nash.
Yes! I went to school with Kaylah. I went to school in Montclair. That’s where I got my degree in Business with a minor in Japanese/Economics. But I’m from Northwest Jersey, so I grew up in the countryside.
How country were you?
Pretty country — we’re talking corn fields, cows. To give you perspective, one time I picked up my grandma from the airport, and someone’s horse had gotten out and was running down the street as we were on the way home. Lots of Trump flags in my neighborhood, all that stuff. It was a predominantly white area, which was very weird for me. I’m half Japanese and half Black. It was a very interesting time and I was eager to get out of there. I would say I’m much more of a city person, especially after I went to college.
We went from Passaic, New Jersey which as you know is very urban, to Radnor, Pennsylvania, which is very suburban, mostly white folks with money. When we first moved in, kids were throwing things at me and my dog and telling me to go back to Africa. And I’m like, but I’m from Jersey!
I had an instance in fourth grade or something, when this new kid came into class. His dad was in the military. It was Pearl Harbor Day and I remember him looking dead in my eyes, and calling me a traitor. I remember thinking this is terrible, being taunted for something that was totally unrelated to me as a person. So, yeah, that kind of stuff just would happen.
Yeah, it’s a little crazy sometimes. Do you have any siblings?
I have a brother. He’s six years younger than me.
What did the folks do?
So my dad has been in management consulting for pretty much my whole life. He now runs his own company doing that, among other things, for small, medium, and large businesses. My mom works in purchasing for a Japanese company. My mom’s been with her company for almost a decade now, I think. My dad actually just started off on his own in the last couple years.
What sort of extracurricular things did you do in high school?
I was so ready to move out from the very beginning that high school, for me, was all about college. When I was a freshman, I wanted to go to Stanford, so I did all the extracurriculars. I was super involved. I would say that was where I started to have this very hectic kind of life. I was at school from 7:30 in the morning to sometimes 9 or 10 at night, pretty much every single day.
I was on the student council, I was on the debate team, I did track. I was in the marching band, the concert band, all the choirs. I even did little side things, like computer programming. The school had won a grant for what was called a Now Robot. It was this little humanoid robot, and I was part of the computer science class, so I was able to program the robot to work with the special-needs class, to teach them the alphabet and numbers and emotions and things like that. I was on the robotics team too. I did so much stuff! But I loved it. It was also partly that I didn’t love being at home, so I wanted to always be out somewhere, and school was the easiest place and the freest place to do that.
[Laughing] So I know what a Blerd is [Black nerd], but I don’t know how you do a Black Japanese nerd? Blajerd?
Right! [Laughing] But wait, I was into a lot of the nerdy stuff, I would say, but I feel like I didn’t feel like a nerd in the original sense! I was friends with everyone. And I didn’t end up going to Stanford. I ended up going to USC right out of high school, which ended up being a better fit for me. Originally, I was going for STEM because I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. I wanted to work at Ferrari because at the time, I was very into cars.
And then through my time at USC, I realized that Los Angeles was probably more my speed, because I also had a very creative side. I felt that San Francisco, or NorCal would have been a lot more tech focused, a lot more just straight math, which was not quite what I was into. I was also into the arts and I needed that balance, so USC ended up being perfect for me, other than the price tag, which I couldn’t afford! I literally couldn’t take out enough student loans to go back for my second year. So by the time I was doing finals and all that stuff, I knew I was going to have to apply to other schools because I couldn’t take out enough loans to go back for my second year. FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] had somehow calculated that my family should be able to contribute X amount of dollars to my education, and I only got X amount of aid. It was like, what calculations were they doing? Their understanding is that they should have planned for this. But clearly, my family missed that memo.
Once I recognized that, it became my whole mission, like how can I bring this information to folks like me who would never have gotten this otherwise? There was a business school symposium where they would invite different industry folks, and they would talk about their jobs. One day featured financial advisors and they were talking about how they help folks build their wealth, and plan for their most important life goals, like buying houses, sending their kids to college, all those things. And I was sitting there riveted. I got goosebumps on my arm, like “Wow, that’s exactly what I want to do.” I turned to my friend who came with me and she’s literally sleeping. But that’s when I decided I wanted to become a financial advisor.
Wow, so to go back to your younger stuff, what instrument did you play in the band?
I played trumpet since I was in the fourth grade. It was one of those things where I liked the trumpet, but my dad also already had one, so I guess this is what I’m playing. But it ended up fitting my personality really well. I feel like the trumpet in the band is very high-energy.
And it’s one way to build strong lips!
Yeah, but even with that, racism reared its ugly head. I remember my first day playing trumpet. All the other kids were doing a great job, and I was making notes, but they were sounding airy and a little bit off. My band teacher, this white woman, said your lips might be too big to play the trumpet. I was thinking, “Are you kidding me, some of the most famous trumpet players in the world, in history, are Black. Why would you say that?”
But I got over it, and I ended up becoming first chair in the concert band, and I was the high brass section leader in the marching band. My lips clearly were not too big, but I just remember little moments like that, and thinking that other little kids didn’t have to deal with those little moments of, “You are not the right person to do this kind of stuff.” And I was already dealing internally with knowing that I was queer, and fighting that — kids calling me gay all the time, especially as I got older. And as someone who identifies as pan, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be labeled as gay, it was that I didn’t want to close off the other side. So those were things I was always struggling with growing up.
Layers on layers. What was your greatest sports moment?
Well, I wish I could have been good at sports, but I just didn’t commit enough time to it, because I had so many other things that I was doing. I made it to regionals for track one year, and I had a really great time. I thought, “Wow, if I really focused on this, I could go to the Olympics!” But I think I actually blew my race, whatever.
What did you run?
I was a sprinter, so I did the 1, 2, 4, and 4 x 4, so a bunch of the races. I loved being a sprinter and the competitiveness of it. I loved that it was just quick bursts, just do your race and be done.
When you were out in California, did you experience any earthquakes?
No, I always think it’s so funny because I lived in California for a year, but I’ve experienced more earthquakes in New Jersey than I have in California. For that most recent one this past year, I was in Philly, and I was at the Pyramid Club, so I was on the 52nd floor of the building. When the whole building started shaking, I was freaking out. But no, no California earthquakes for me.
What brought you into the City of Philadelphia?
I grew up going to New York a lot, modeling a little bit, and going back and forth from NJ to NYC. At the time, I was working three jobs, going to school full time, and going to the city every week. It was a lot. Philadelphia always felt like the “other city,” like New York is always “the city.” But Philadelphia felt a lot more accessible.
And cost was the biggest part for me. As a financial advisor, we don’t start off our careers with the nice salaries that people might think. A lot of us start with no salary. It’s often commission based. So we’re making ends meet and trying to be smart about our own money while at the same time advising people on theirs. So I thought, “Where can I get a good city experience, but at a much more affordable rate?” And that was Philadelphia. And then I got here, and I had an even better time than I expected. I also moved here as a move toward intentionality and authenticity. I had just come out to my parents and figured out where I wanted to focus in my practice, and started to be a lot more vocal about it within the company too.
You help people achieve their goals. Is there any story that sticks out?
There are so many, including things that seem really little, but make a huge difference in someone’s overall financial picture. We have a client who started doing planning with us when he was young — simple things like getting the right insurance, making sure you have your retirement started, making sure you’re saving money. A year or two later, he had a kid and then a year later, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Which often means not being able to get certain things like life and disability insurance, but I was so happy to have already had some of those conversations with him, and now he doesn’t need to worry about being able to get those insurances because he already had them locked in.
We’ve had clients who were able to pay off their student loans just because we took a look at their situation. I have one case where we had a client who got almost $100,000 of student loans forgiven. And that’s not even something that we get paid on as advisors. It’s just something that we are doing within our planning conversations.
And then we’ve got really big ones where we’re helping clients build businesses, or buy buildings for their businesses. Seeing the transition from small business owner, just a mom-and-pop shop to a fully fledged corporation with benefits for their employees, having retirement set up, and being able to have a transition plan where at the end of the day, they can sell their business to their kids without their kids having to pay a million dollars out of pocket is amazing. All these really intricate plans that make it so that a business is much more viable and helps that family so much more. I could go on all day with all the things that we do.
I see that your logo features rainbow Pride colors.
Yes, our company is a subsidiary. We’re affiliated with Northwestern Mutual, but we have our own firm, Unicorn Wealth Solutions, which works with unicorns or “unique individual” clients. My boss, Sara Samuels is really great about integrating everything we do to be inclusive. Like, how do we interact with our clients? How do we ask our questions, be mindful of how we are communicating with diverse folks, and make sure we are creating safe spaces?
We’re talking about people’s most nerve-wracking and self-conscious truths when we’re talking about their finances. There’s no judgment. There’s full understanding that you weren’t a financial professional before or after you’ve had this conversation with us. We don’t expect you to have all this knowledge. That’s why you’re talking to us. People come into a meeting and they’re apologizing for not knowing something, and we’re like, “That’s why you have us.” Northwestern Mutual also is a great organization to be partnered with, because they also care about a lot of those same things.
I helped lead Northwestern Mutual’s National LGBTQ ERG, which is called Pride at NM, and that’s actually how Sara and I met. We work with advisors, staff members, and team members, making sure that they feel safe, comfortable and can do their best work, but then also on the client side, how do we make sure that the client experience is the best possible? So we’re looking at underwriting practices. We’re looking at what the questionnaires look like. How are we training new advisors? We get to work on all of those things.
The crazy thing is that Northwestern Mutual, this Fortune 100 company, actually hears what we say and changes things, makes differences. We’ve started an annual event called Together with Pride. It brings together all the Pride ERGs and allies from across the country for a big conference. Unlike a lot of large companies that are pulling back on DEI, Northwestern Mutual has continued to make it a focus. And that’s one of the reasons why I have made it a point to stay involved with Northwestern Mutual. It’s one of the few companies in the industry that I feel I can be aligned with and never have to apologize for.
Which leads me to Shometha Monét.
Ah yes, Shometha Monét. The name is a play on “Show me the money.” She was born through Northwestern Mutual. They had been looking for some representation at their Out & Equal booth in Vegas. They posted something asking if anyone had drag queen talent who could host their booth. I replied back “I walked around in heels a lot in college but I’ve never done makeup or full drag. If the company wants to buy me a dress and some makeup, I’ll do it” and they literally sponsored all my first outfits, my first wigs, my first set of padding and all that stuff. And I’m appreciative of that whole experience because I had considered doing drag for so long, but because it’s such an expensive thing to get into, I don’t think I ever would have made that jump without them putting dollars behind it.
That’s fantastic. What kind of stuff do you like to do when you’re not doling out financial pearls?
I am a big skater. I love roller skating and rollerblading. I also still model, so I’m signed with an agency, and then I do a lot of music. I am a singer, and I do a lot of music writing.
And you’re into art as well, correct?
I’m super into it. I actually just got back from Art Basel in Miami, and that was amazing. I love artwork, and I’m starting a nice little collection, so I’m really excited about that. And I’ve always been into cars and motorcycles, so you can catch me tinkering with my car, depending on how my nails are. Right now, I’ve got boy nails, so I can actually work on my car.
That’s funny. OK, some random questions then. What was your first car?
My first car was actually — this is funny — my first car that I drove around consistently was actually my dad’s big yellow Hummer. We used to call it the school bus. It was his midlife crisis-type situation, and had crazy, giant speakers, everything. Then my real first car was a Jeep Patriot. So not even a real Jeep. After that, I’ve always driven cars that were stick, two-liter turbo engines. I love a little whip.
Who’s a favorite author?
I have been loving, loving Octavia Butler — so many good books. I used to commute an hour-and-a-half each way, so did a lot of audiobooks, and I listened to a lot of Octavia Butler during that time. Highly, highly recommend it.
Do you remember your first book as a kid?
Um, no, but I do remember the first books that really got me into reading in fourth grade. My teacher was really good at getting us into books. And I read the whole “Inheritance Cycle” series. I loved dragons and magic and stuff like that. Those books were like 600-800 pages long, and I used to read them in a few days. “Eragon” was the first one.
What are three smells that make you nostalgic?
I love the smell of rice cooking in the morning when you’re in Japan. In my mom’s small town, you can walk outside at four in the morning and smell rice cooking. The smell of lavender is very calming to me. I don’t know if I smelled it a lot growing up, but I have an affinity towards it, and then my grandma. She doesn’t smell like a grandma, I don’t even know what the scent is, but she smells really good, whatever it is. We’re going down to actually see her for the holidays in Georgia in a few days. So I’m excited to smell her again.
The bartender knows I drink…
Whiskey sour. All day long. Makers Mark every time. Easy answer.
For more information on Unicorn Wealth Solutions, visit northwesternmutual.com.