Kenny Buckey, co-founder of The Pivot Place.
Courtesy: Kenny Bucky
Kenny Bucky, a millennial professional, earned a six-figure salary in 2024 and attributed her high earnings to two main strategies: building an audience on social media and learning high-paying skills.
Although he is under 30 years old, Bucky balances multiple jobs and earned just over £100,000 (about $130,000) in 2024.
However, it was not always this way. When she graduated from university in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in forensic science, she felt her prospects looked bleak.
“Right out of college, I was very worried about money, and considering the salaries, they weren't that great,” she told CNBC Make It in an interview.
But she realized she wanted a high salary, so she set out to make it happen.
“I was very intentional about the career paths I was taking and how I was trading my time for money,” she explained. “Money was always an issue… (and) I realized it was important to go into high-end professions so I could mitigate that,” she explained.
This situation led to Bucky turning to the financial services sector where she saw money could be made.
She is trained as a compliance officer and has worked in this role for companies including KPMG and… Visa. Now, despite taking a break from the 9-to-5 for the past year, she's making six figures as a full-time content creator, as well as through her work as a digital youth engagement officer, career coach, and public speaker. .
Bukky chose to keep her legal name and age private for privacy reasons, and CNBC verified her earnings through billing data.
“I felt like I had a lot of value to share.”
Building a personal brand on social media was key to earning a high income, Bucky said.
She has nearly 130,000 followers on TikTok and over 35,000 followers on Instagram and creates content around career advice and wealth building for her demographic of mostly young, ambitious women of color.
“I just wanted to share my career path and personal finance knowledge, because I felt like those are things I mastered at a young age and do really well,” she said.
“I felt like I had a lot of value to share, and that indirectly led to building a personal brand.”
As a result of her growing audience, she has been able to collaborate with brands such as LinkedIn, Deutsche Bank, MicrosoftAssociation of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Bing, and HSBC On social media.
Becoming a social media personality gave Bucky the impetus to co-found The Pivot Place in 2023, a company that helps people build the skills needed to move into non-programming technical roles.
“Skills pay the bills”
Bucky said she is able to charge higher prices for the services she provides because she has invested in improving skills.
“I have a firm belief that when you invest in yourself, your skills and your knowledge, you can have a very high ROI (return on investment) in terms of the amount you can earn as a person, which is sometimes more than the stock market will pay you money on,” Bucky explained. Launch.
When Bucky was 23, she was working as an analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland on a salary of £28,000. She then moved to a management position that paid him £40,000.
“I was very intentional in knowing that I wanted a huge jump. I didn't want to be here and get a 3% raise every two years,” she explained. “What that involved was going into a much higher role than I was in, and learning how to confidently market myself to roles that were very high profile.”
Even though she was suffering from imposter syndrome at the time, Bucky wanted to challenge her perception of what she was capable of. To prepare for this role, she did a lot of self-study using free online resources.
She advised young people trying to earn a six-figure salary to look for ways to build “high-income skills” that will increase the value of their time. Bucky recommended taking courses, joining communities or bootcamps, or even starting a side hustle to do so.
“Skills pay the bills. You need to build high-income skills. You don't have to remain stagnant in terms of the value of your time,” she added.
