# Maddy Dychtwald

Maddy Kent Dychtwald is an American author, professional speaker, and a board member for non-profits focused on the topic of aging and the influence of older women on the global economy. She co-founded Age Wave, a California Bay Area-based consulting and research company focused on the aging population, specifically the baby boomer generation. Her books have discussed the economic improvement of women over time and how the increasing social and political power of women will impact fields such as financial services, healthcare, and consumer marketing.

## Career

Recognized as one of the top fifty female futurists globally, Dychtwald’s career has focused on exploring all aspects of the “age wave” and its fundamental transformation of the marketplace, the workplace, and retirement.
She is a lead partner for Portfolia, a collaborative equity investment platform in the Active Aging and Longevity 2 Fund. Dychtwald is a co-founder of the non-profit Women Against Alzheimer’s and previously served as a former board member of the BrightFocus Foundation, which funds research to cure diseases of the brain and eye.

### Authorship

Dychtwald is the author of four books, including the national bestseller Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan. Ageless Aging made USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly national best-seller lists.
Dychtwald’s books discuss the economic improvement of women over time and how their increasing social and political power will impact fields such as financial services, healthcare, and consumer marketing. Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better addresses how traditional roles for men and women have been changing, with women making up more than half of those employed and the majority of university degrees conferred annually.
Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy discusses demographic shifts in the population as people live to older ages and are still involved in economic systems, with 50-year-olds becoming a dominant part of the business environment. The Boston Globe referred to the book's subject matter as a "thought-provoking, well-reasoned argument" and that Dychtwald successfully made her book "packed with anecdotes, making for a lively read."
In the children’s book Gideon's Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings, Dychtwald and her husband, Ken Dychtwald, teach children about changes that continue to happen to people as they get old and how it is not only children who have to deal with changes in their lives. A senior illustrator for Disney, Dave Zaboski, and his 7-year-old daughter created the pictures for the book.

### News and media

Dychtwald has been featured in various media outlets including Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and TIME. She is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s Retirement Expert Panel, where she authored the top wealth-management expert post for 2017 and 2018 based on reader traffic.

### Professional speaking and consulting

Dychtwald and her husband founded a consulting firm named Age Wave that specifically aims to give advice and information to those in the baby boomer generation on a variety of topics. She also frequently acts as a professional speaker in various international events, such as a trip to Melbourne, Australia in June of 2000 to speak on the subject of choice and how lifestyle trends are shifting so more people at various stages of their life can make new career decisions and even continue their education at an old age. She presented before the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce in September of 2007 on how baby boomers are working to older ages and the impact that would have on the economy. Alongside Merrill Lynch's Women and Financial Wellness division, Dychtwald conducted a study on the amount of money on average men and women make and determined there was a significant wage gap because women retire early, with this often putting them in financial difficulties in their later years.

## Awards and honors

In 2016, Dychtwald and her husband, Ken Dychtwald, received the Esalen Prize for "Advancing Human Potential of Aging Population"..

## Personal life

A graduate of New York University, Dychtwald has been a working mother living in the San Francisco Bay Area for much of her adult life. She is married to Ken Dychtwald. They live in Orinda, California, and have two adult children, Zak and Casey.

## Books

* Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan, with contributor Kate Hanley, Mayo Clinic Press, 2024
* Influence: How Women's Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, with Christine Larsen, Hachette, 2010
* Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy, Free Press, 2003 and 2008
* Gideon's Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings, co-authored with Ken Dychtwald [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Dychtwald], Grace Zaboski, and Dave Zaboski (illustrator), HarperCollins, 2008