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2012
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Matt Fellowes ’97
The Business of Helping Business
says. “We did a comprehensive review of
the market, found a niche in it, and then
spent a lot of time talking to our potential
employer customers to confirm that we
had found a niche they would value.”
Fellowes set his sights on growing Hel-
loWallet in a manner that would defend
it from competition in years to come. In
late 2011, HelloWallet signed a deal with
Amazon to start distributing directly to
consumers later this year. The service was
also recognized as one of ABC News’s
“Top 5 coolest start-ups in the country” in
July 2010.
Fellowes says he came up with the idea
for HelloWallet while working at the
Brookings Institution to help the White
House and governors respond to the mort-
gage crisis in 2008. “I quickly discovered
that one of the most important drivers
of that crisis was the fact that only about
15 percent of Americans, most of whom
are high-income, have access to financial
advice,” he says. “I decided to create a new
business model based on technology that
could democratize access to independent
financial advice.”
Despite the recent economic crisis,
Fellowes says HelloWallet is thriving. “In
four months in 2011, we sold 340,000
subscriptions to Fortune 500 companies,
and plan to distribute our service to 2
million workers in 2012,” he says. “There is
no more pressing a time for people to seek
financial guidance than during a recession.
Employers are very keen on cutting costs,
while keeping their workers motivated and
optimistic about the future. We help them
do all of that.”
Along with his position at the Brook-
ings Institution, the government and
environmental studies combined major
was an adjunct professor of public policy
at Georgetown University and George
Washington University before he created
HelloWallet. He says he enrolled at St.
Lawrence because “SLU has among the
best international study and environmen-
tal studies programs in the country,” along
with a beautiful campus and a community-
like atmosphere.
Fellowes credits Professor Alan Draper
of government with teaching him to write
and think systematically. “The amount
of time he invested in me went way above
and beyond the call of duty,” he says. “I am
incredibly grateful to him.”
At SLU, Fellowes was the co-founder
of the Greenhouse theme cottage and
president of the Environmental Action
Organization (EAO). Originally from
Chicago, he is now settled in Washington,
D.C., with his wife, Cristianne McKenna
Fellowes ’99, and their two children.
Renee Hilbrunner was a senior intern in
the University communications office in Fall
2011.
HelloWallet donates one of every five subscriptions to
the nation’s working poor.
By Renee Hilbrunner ’12
M
att Fellowes ’97 says he knew
during his years at St. Lawrence
that he would become an
entrepreneur trying to improve the world,
though “it probably seemed inchoate back
then.” Today, the founder and CEO of
HelloWallet, an online, independent finan-
cial guidance service, has a clearer vision.
HelloWallet is primarily distributed as
a workplace benefit. It’s a low-cost way
to serve employees’ need for unbiased
financial guidance, according to Fellowes.
“Large employers provide our service as
a benefit to their workers, as a means to
improve retirement readiness, control
healthcare costs, and drive up worker
engagement and productivity,” he says.
HelloWallet donates one of every five
subscriptions to the nation’s working poor,
something noted by former President
Clinton as a “harnessing innovation” at the
Clinton Global Initiative event in Septem-
ber of 2009.
“The key to our success and rapid
growth was doing a lot of front-end think-
ing, researching and planning,” Fellowes