JINA PENN-TRACY – Sr. Wealth Manager*, Co-Owner and Co-Founder of CW

Jina Penn-Tracy is passionate about leaving this world a better place. Jina believes that comprehensive planning allows individuals, businesses, and nonprofits to make more ethically aligned and influential decisions regarding the spending and investing of their money. 

 A cancer diagnosis at age 19 led Jina to years of consumer activism around issues of chemical contamination in our environment and especially the food system. After co-founding a rapidly growing import company in the 1990s, Jina shifted careers in 2004 to become the type of financial advisor she wished she could find; an advisor focused on utilizing the power and influence of money to make positive changes in the world. 

In 2019, early life trauma led her to found the nonprofit, Children’s Theatre Alumni Survivors Fund (CTA Wellness). Jina is the President of the Board of CTA Wellness. Since 2014, Jina has volunteered with the Carbon Divestment Coalition in Minnesota, committed to seeing the MN state Pension funds divested from the top 200 carbon-holding companies. 

Jina has been quoted in Financial Advisory Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Investment News as well as local Minneapolis media. In 2020, Jina hosted an event at Climate Week for the UN.

Jina and her husband just completed the construction of their Net Zero home walking distance from the Minneapolis Centered Wealth Office. Jina enjoys world-wide travel, gardening and her energetic dogs, Matteo and Guinness.

STUART VALENTINE, MBA – SR. Wealth Manager*, Co-Owner and Co-Founder of CW

Stuart has been active in the positive impact investment movement since 2000. Having grown up in the cultural fire of the 1960s within the Portland, Oregon, progressive community, Stuart had to overcome the common narrative of the time that money negatively influenced society and the environment. Through his practice of meditation and his undergraduate degree in Renewable Energy Systems, he gained a new perspective on the role of markets in creating a more life-supporting economy. He then completed his Consciousness-based MBA at Maharishi International University in 1986, which anchored his vision for conscious capital's role in transforming finance and creating a regenerative economy.

Stuart brings his 36 years of comprehensive investment analysis and strategy and 42 years of meditation practice to support clients in aligning their deepest values with a practical investment plan. Stuart is passionate about inspiring his clients to discover the power of staying true to themselves and cultivating a clear vision and purpose in life and finance. He believes that the experience of centered wealth is a function of one’s clear vision, ability to stay grounded, open, and present, and to take aligned action in the face of life’s ups and downs.

After a 13-year run as co-owner of a commodity futures trading firm, Stuart co-founded the Socially Responsible Investment-based firm, Centerpoint Investment Strategies in the year 2000. In 2017 he and Jina Penn-Tracy co-founded Centered Wealth which expanded the depth, impact, and reach of their impact investment mission.

He applies this Transforming Finance vision by actively participating in his professional community. From 2010 – 2014, Stuart served on the drafting committee of the Transforming Finance Group, founded by Hazel Henderson. This included the development of the Ethical Biomimicry Finance Model and the statement on Transforming Finance Based on Ethics and Life’s Principles in 2012. During this period, he served on the Research Advisory Board of Ethical Markets Media, focusing on social venture capital and sustainable community development.

Additionally, Stuart is a recognized speaker and contributor about the conscious investment process and megatrend drivers behind the growing green economy. In 2000, to provide investors with a roadmap to growing true wealth, Stuart authored an article series on SRI and its relationship to the Hero’s journey. In 2017, Stuart co-authored the book, Imagining Philanthropy for Life: A Whole System Strategy to Transform Finance & Grow True Wealth.

In his local community, Stuart serves as the Board Chair of the Sustainable Living Coalition, a non-profit that facilitates human and financial capital to optimize the conditions for growing sustainable communities. He is also a Board member of the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT), dedicated to permanently protecting Iowa farmland to grow healthy table food for generations to come.

Stuart lives with his wife, Elin, on their pastoral homestead in Fairfield, Iowa. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, cooking, pickleball, kayaking, bicycling, and organic gardening.

ANYA GAGE – Financial Advisor**, Executive Assistant

Anya has her Series 65 Securities license and Minnesota Life and Health Insurance license. She is an advisor at Centered Wealth and works in collaboration with her mother and co-owner of Centered Wealth, Jina Penn-Tracy.

Anya holds a Bachelor of Science in Sustainability with an emphasis on the Economics of Sustainability from the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University. She is currently pursuing a Certified Financial Planner designation. 

Anya joined Centered Wealth in 2018 after working in the Minneapolis service and hospitality business for many years. Anya has a life-long passion for social, economic, and environmental justice. Anya has studied the interconnectedness of global economic inequality, feminism, and sustainability. After she started working for Centered Wealth, Anya’s passion for creative and tailored customer service as well as her desire to support the creation of a more equitable, green, and just world sparked her interest in becoming a financial planner.  Anya is focused on ESG, SRI, and impact investing in addition to comprehensive financial planning. 

Anya currently lives in St. Louis Park, MN. She enjoys gardening, spending time with friends & family, pub trivia, and listening to podcasts.