Past Speakers

The Your Wealth Lecture Series is a new series to the 2012-13 academic year at Northern Michigan University. As speakers present, their information and video links to their presentations will be posted here.

​Suzanna de Baca is vice president of client acquisition, retirement and wealth strategies at Ameriprise Financial, Inc.  She has 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. In her 6 p.m. Thursday, March 21 presentation in Mead Auditorium, she will be discussing how women can take control of their finances, as well as giving advice on how to make informed financial decisions.  Other topics she will be speaking about are how to gain control over your financial situation and protecting the people and things you love.

Prior to joining Ameriprise, de Baca served as an advisor to high net worth individuals and families and held senior-level positions in sales management and business development at several asset management firms, including Bank of America’s Private Bank  and Morgan Stanley’s Private Wealth Group.

De Baca appears frequently on national television and radio, providing commentary on retirement, financial management and consumer finance. She is regularly quoted in national news and consumer publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In addition, she is a regular contributor to industry and consumer business publications, including a weekly family finance column for Time.com.  She is also a business book reviewer for Publishers Weekly.

De Baca earned a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s from Iowa State University. 

Niels Veldhuis is the president of the Fraser Institute and co-author of the best-selling and award-winning book The Canadian Century. In his Nov. 12 presentation, he spoke about the lessons the United States can learn from its northern neighbor and what Washington would look like on a Canadian diet.

American's view Canadians as friendly, hockey-loving people, but usually don't look to them for leadership on public policy issues. True that liberals laud Canada's socialized health care system, but conservatives see it as emblematic of an uncompetitive welfare state. However, it is time for an image makeover. While U.S. politicians expanded government, Canadians cut government spending, reduced tax rates, and balanced budgets. Now Canada is among the top five most economically free countries in the world, well ahead of the United States, which has fallen to 18th overall, according to the Fraser Institute's annual Economic Freedom of the World report.