Maddy Dychtwald
Age Wave Co-Founder
Recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 50 female futurists globally, Maddy Dychtwald has been deeply involved for nearly 40 years in exploring all aspects of the age wave and how it’s transforming the marketplace, the workplace, our world, and our lives. She is an internationally acclaimed author, public speaker, Wall Street Journal blogger, and thought leader on longevity, aging, the new retirement, and the ascent of women.
A successful entrepreneur, in 1986 Maddy co-founded Age Wave, the world’s leading think tank and corporate adviser on the far-reaching and profound impacts of our global aging population. The Age Wave team has worked with more than half of the Fortune 500 in industries ranging from healthcare and medical technology to financial services and consumer products.
With women at the forefront of the longevity revolution, Maddy has deeply explored their specific longevity-related wants, needs, and challenges. She has led numerous acclaimed studies on women and money, including the landmark Women, Money and Power sponsored by Allianz and Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Maddy also served as the national co-spokesperson for an in-depth investigation titled The Four Pillars of the New Retirement: What a Difference a Year Makes, sponsored by Edward Jones. In addition, she has been involved in more than 25 thought leadership research studies worldwide on aging, longevity, retirement, health, family, caregiving, housing, and leisure, which have been featured in prominent media outlets, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Newsweek, Time, CNBC, and NPR—cumulatively garnering more than 12 billion media impressions.
As a member of The Wall Street Journal’s Expert Panel on Retirement, Maddy’s posts on leadership, wealth management, and financial planning topped the most-read lists for their categories in 2017 and 2018.
She is the author of three books, Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy (voted Book of the Year by the National Community Colleges Association), Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, and the children’s/young readers’ book Gideon’s Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings. Currently she is working on a new book, Ageless Aging: Women’s Longevity Bonus and the Art and Science of Living Longer, Better, to be published with Mayo Clinic Press which merges her professional and personal passions.
Having watched both her mother and mother-in-law battle dementia, Maddy is committed to eradicating this horrific disease. She is a co-founder of the non-profit Women Against Alzheimer’s and serves as a board member of the non-profit BrightFocus Foundation, which funds cutting-edge research to cure diseases of the brain and eye.
A working mom for much of her adult life, Maddy is now an empty nester. She is passionate about her family and about longevity as both a demographic phenomenon and a personal journey. Maddy and her husband Ken were awarded the prestigious Esalen Prize for their outstanding contributions to advancing the human potential of aging men and women worldwide.