Susan Lynn “Suze” Orman has made a career of advising people to take more direct control of their finances. Orman graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1976 with a BA in social work, and in 1980 borrowed $50,000 from family and friends to open a restaurant, investing the money through a Merrill Lynch broker who immediately lost her money. Later that year Orman began working for Merill Lynch as an account executive, investigated the broker who had lost her money, and successfully sued the firm for $50,000. The experience shaped her career, showing her the importance of understanding and taking charge of one’s finances. In 1983 she left Merrill Lynch for a position at Prudential Bache Securities, and in 1987 she opened her own firm, the Suze Orman Financial Group, which she ran for ten years. She published the first of her many books on finance, You Earned It, Don’t Lose It, in 1995. In 1997 she became both finance editor of Oprah Magazine and host of a show on financial advice on QVC. She began hosting the Suze Orman show on CNBC in 2002, and in 2011 joined Oprah’s OWN network with two shows on money management. In 2010 she married her long-time partner, Kathy “KT” Travis.