Suze Orman: A Lost $52,000 Loan, a Merrill Lynch Job and the Approved Card

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Suze Orman was born on Chicago's South Side in 1951 to Jewish parents of Russian and Romanian descent. Her father worked in a chicken factory and managed a deli in Hyde Park, and her mother was a secretary for a rabbi. She earned a social work degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1976 and waited tables in Berkeley into her late 20s. In 1980 she borrowed $52,000 from friends to open a restaurant and handed it to a Merrill Lynch broker, who lost all of it in options trading.

She went back to Merrill Lynch and got hired as an account executive, learning that the trade had been unsuitable for her and that the broker was the office's top producer. She stayed until 1983, became a vice president of investments at Prudential-Bache, and founded the Suze Orman Financial Group in Emeryville in 1987. She published 10 consecutive New York Times bestsellers between 1995 and 2020 and hosted The Suze Orman Show on CNBC from 2002 to 2015, winning two Emmys. Her 2012 Approved Card, a prepaid debit card, drew criticism for fees including a $3 monthly charge and for its credit claims, since TransUnion did not factor its use into FICO scores; it was discontinued by 2014.

• In the 1980s she gave away a free booklet comparing single premium whole life, universal life and deferred annuity products.
• She appeared on Larry King Live more than 30 times and on Oprah about 29 times, and a free Women and Money download in 2008 drew nearly 2 million downloads.
• Her wife and business partner KT, whom she married in 2010, said her own career was building brands and Suze was the brand.
• She became a personal finance educator for the U.S. Army in 2016 and a special advocate on financial abuse for the National Domestic Violence Hotline in 2018.
• Her 2020 fintech startup SecureSave, which lets employers match employee emergency savings, was acquired by HSA Bank in 2025.