Financial Trauma as a Barrier to Sustainable Impact: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Inclusive Capital

Access to capital is often viewed as a technical challenge—but for many underrepresented founders, it is also an emotional and psychological one. Financial trauma, rooted in generational poverty, systemic exclusion, and personal financial crises, shapes how entrepreneurs engage with money, risk, debt, and growth. This interactive workshop introduces a trauma-informed lens to financial literacy, bridging the gap between financial behavior and capital readiness.

Led by CFO strategist and financial trauma expert D. Cherelle Cohens, this session will explore how global financial markets can evolve to center healing, equity, and inclusion. Participants will engage in dynamic exercises, case studies, and peer collaboration to examine how trauma manifests in financial decision-making, and how institutions can better support entrepreneurs through more compassionate capital strategies.

This session offers practical frameworks and tools for investors, funders, ecosystem builders, and entrepreneurs to drive more sustainable impact by reimagining the emotional and systemic barriers to financial empowerment. Attendees will walk away equipped to replicate trauma-informed financial practices within their communities, businesses, or portfolios—ensuring that financial systems not only grow economies, but restore lives.