Triathlete, yoga enthusiast & finance educator

Pune: Finance educator Shruti Shah seamlessly blends academic concepts with real-world financial insights, creating impactful learning experiences.Beyond her professional endeavours, Shruti is a triathlete and yoga enthusiast, which she says helps maintain her work-life balance and excel in her career.For Shruti, her day is incomplete without her workout, whether it's a jog or a round of cycling, because, according to her, that is the time when her brain stimulates ideas for her career growth. When she started educating adults on finance management, she found that there was a fear for finance among them. "I designed a financial literacy curriculum for children between eight and 16 years of age, which is being implemented in many schools in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad. Coming from a finance background, I initially conducted these tutorials for adults but later realised that these lessons should start young, and that is when the idea of educating children in finance emerged. This idea popped into my mind when I was doing my workout," Shruti said.She completed the Bergman triathlon last year, where she won the silver medal, and she continues to train for these events and participate more to keep her mind and body fit."From childhood, I had a liking for field and track events, which I pursued even after completing education along with my professional career in finance. I still like to participate in events, and so I train hard every day. After my child came along, training became difficult in the mornings, and evenings would often be busy with meetings and closing work. So, the only free time during the day was the afternoon. I did not care what time of the day it was and went out for a run even during the afternoon, and I still do that because I don't want to miss out on it," Shruti said.For children, the curriculum designed by Shah mainly includes modules on banking, investments, needs versus wants, budgeting, money control, debit and credit cards, EMIs, loans, among other concepts, which have now been adopted by many schools and junior colleges."Like we teach eating habits to children, I feel it is also important to develop money habits, which essentially means knowing finance from a young age so that when they grow up, they do not have fear of finance, which many adults today experience. The children of today's age are educated and self-taught on these topics through online videos, but it is also important for them to know ethical and unethical ways of financing, dangers of cyber frauds, among other things, which have been covered at length in the module," Shruti added. "I felt that if individuals start young, there will be no scope for developing any such thing when the actual time to manage finances arrives. Hence, consciously I decided to start teaching school going children about finances and I thought that that was the best move I had made. Children were eager to learn more about money matters and as a result, they were also influencing their parents in the right direction to manage their finances better," she added. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Women's Day wishes, messages and quotes !