It’s not often a creator gets an executive title. But that’s exactly what Vivian Tu, known online as Your Rich BFF, has done with SoFi.
Late last year, Tu assumed the role of chief of financial empowerment at the financial services brand, and today, SoFi is making Tu’s role at the company widely known as the face of the brand’s latest ad campaign.
The campaign centers on Tu’s life and financial journey, and is now playing across networks like AMC, HGTV, Food Network, and Investigation Discovery, as well as on streaming platforms like Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube TV, and Paramount+.
“The hope is that people will see that I am a normal, regular person,” Tu told Marketing Brew. “I want everybody to feel that type of inspiration…that they can build the financial life that they want, and also feel very rich in their life.”
We spoke exclusively with Tu about her role as chief of financial empowerment at SoFi, what it was like shooting the campaign, and why we may see more creators assume in-house roles this year.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Tell me about how you came into this role as chief of financial empowerment.
It actually didn’t come overnight. SoFi has been my longstanding partner of over two and a half years…Ultimately, we came to the realization, as we had previously worked together, that my audience was loving SoFi products. I wished that I was going to be able to have more impact and more input into how those products were built and what the features might be, and SoFi loved the type of educational work that I was doing. So it felt like a perfect marriage where I could help SoFi work with their members to reach all of their ambitions. But also, from my perspective, I now got to be an advocate for my audience for what they need to help them be their financial best selves.
What does your role look like day to day?
It’s actually still pretty similar to the partnerships that we’ve had in the past. Not only am I the host of Richer Lives, our YouTube show and podcast, but also I focus a lot on providing feedback to SoFi about their high-yield savings product, their personal loan product, their home loans, student loan refinancing, investing products. But I get that feedback by sharing and creating content around financial education on behalf of each of those different categories. When I realize that I’m getting a bunch of questions, I can then be a feedback loop for them for how they can improve.
When you decided to do content creation full-time, was this the path that you envisioned, being able to assume a position like this one day?
Absolutely not. I joke that it’s like a boomerang. I had a job at a bank, certainly not one that I’m as proud of. I went into the media business. I took Your Rich BFF full-time after building that at my media business, and now I’m back [in banking] as the chief of financial empowerment at SoFi. It’s such a career highlight for me. I don’t think I ever thought that I would be back in a position like this, but also now, to have my opinion and my perspective hold as much weight, it’s an honor.
What was it like doing this TV campaign?
I get emotional even just thinking about it, because it’s my story. It’s my entire career journey and life story boiled down in a 30-second clip that tells the world and everybody who gets to watch it why it’s so important for all of us to be able to get our money right, why it’s so important to have the financial products to get where you need to get.
As chief of financial empowerment, what are the main goals you’re hoping to achieve?
I’m really hoping to empower people to take control of their financial futures and realize all those ambitions that they want by teaching them how to make their money work hard for them through educational resources and innovative financial tools…Not to speak for the entire macroeconomic environment, but things feel really hard right now, but I think it’s important to maintain that optimism and hope.
How does your role at SoFi fit into what you’re also doing on your own as a creator?
I’m such a huge proponent of blocking out my time. Every single day, for my schedule, everything that I have to get done is put on my calendar, and I allocate a certain amount of time to each thing. So I have time for the podcast, I have time to be promoting my book, I have time to be creating content, but I also have large swaths of time allocated specifically to my role as the chief of financial empowerment…I feel so lucky to be busy through a pursuit of my own choosing. I very literally have a dream job.
Has this role helped you expand your platform or open up new opportunities as a creator?
Yeah, of course. Choosing the right partner is so important. I’m at a point in my career now where I’m very rarely doing the, “We’ll trade you X amount of money for one post on your page,” [thing]. I don’t really need to be doing that. Every single partnership that I take on, I put a lot of thought into…With SoFi, I’ve gotten to do so many things that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. Last shoot, we spoke with Christina Milian and Kenan Thompson. I’ve gone to talk to people about money that [usually] would be such a hard thing to even get in their ear, but to hear their money stories, I feel like I get to be a megaphone for sharing experiences, stories, and learning lessons. We’ve all made financial mistakes.
How do you keep your audience engaged and get them to trust you when promoting SoFi products, knowing that you have a role at the company?
I’ve built that trust over five years. I put out a piece of content every single day for five years, and I have never told my audience to YOLO their money into a meme coin. I’ve never told them to buy a specific stock I was pumping. I’ve never told them to do anything like that, even when it was incredibly lucrative for me—I’ve been given multiple very lucrative offers to do things like that—I turned them down. So I think people see day in and day out that I am in the business of education, and because of that, when I do promote something and pick a partner, they know that they can trust me.
What would you tell other creators who want to take on more of a hands-on role with the brands that they’re working with?
Most traditional partnerships are “I trade you money for access to your audience.”…There were times [with SoFi] where I would go above and beyond because I saw the value that they were providing my audience. There were also things that SoFi was not obligated to do for me, like, for example, support my first book tour. But they did, and it was no longer a transactional relationship, but it became a thing where I would do right by them and they would do right by me. We would all make decisions in the spirit of the partnership. Now that I’m in this position, it’s about making sure that I am incentivized to support the business as if it were my own. And I think that is a very, very key part of building these deeper relationships is like showing your partners that you have skin in the game.
Do you see official company roles as the next phase of brand-creator partnerships?
I do…More creators are going to go in-house into brands because their expertise is valued and because it’s going to actually give those companies an insight into live data and live feedback…In my partnership with SoFi, I do get compensated, but I’m also now an equity holder of SoFi stock, and because of that, I feel really compelled to make sure that anything that we’re doing together is to the absolute best of my ability, but also doing right by my audience, because I want them to trust me. We’ve seen examples of this in the past, right? Alix Earle and Poppi. And I think we are going to see more and more of this as creators become the next wave of VC investors and spokespeople. Brands are starting to move away from, “Just get an A-list celebrity and slap their face on something.” It has to be really thoughtful.