About Jen Fontanilla | Creative Business Strategist & TEDx Speaker

"I help creative entrepreneurs solve their real problem. It's not a money problem. It's a positioning problem. And I can spot it immediately, because I've lived on both sides of it."

Jen Fontanilla is a Creative Business Strategist, TEDx speaker, and Certified Money Coach who helps graphic designers and creative entrepreneurs stop attracting budget clients and start commanding the rates they deserve.

What makes her different from every other business strategist in the space is that she speaks two languages most people can't bridge: fluent creative and fluent money, because she spent decades working in both worlds before building the framework that connects them.

Her path wasn't linear. It was survival, reinvention, and ultimately a breakthrough that only happened because she lost everything first.

The Journey

How she got here

1999

The Beginning

She started with the "safe" plan

Jen was on the responsible path — biology major, heading toward a career in medicine. But somewhere along the way she realized she didn't want to work in a hospital. Creativity was pulling too hard, and the safe plan wasn't hers.

The Leap

She chose creativity over security

In 2000 she made the leap into graphic design. She joined a packaging company whose clients included Disney, Sony Pictures, Target, Nintendo, and Universal Studios. She was doing the work she was born to do. But a new gap was surfacing: brilliant at design, completely in the dark about money.

2000

2005

The Pivot

She got licensed and entered financial services

To close her own knowledge gap, Jen got licensed in 2005 and became a life insurance agent and financial advisor. She spent the next 20 years in the financial services industry, doing marketing and design work for financial firms and earning her certifications. Two worlds were being built in parallel. She just didn't know yet how powerfully they'd eventually combine.

2008

The Breaking Point

She lost everything.

When the market crashed in 2008, Jen lost it all. Her marriage. Her home. Millions of dollars' worth of investment properties, all in her name when everything collapsed. She filed for bankruptcy. The shame was suffocating. The woman who had spent years in financial services had just had everything stripped away by it. It was the lowest point of her life, and it was also the beginning of everything that mattered.

The Breakthrough

The breakdown became the breakthrough, and strategy alone wasn't the answer

In rebuilding from zero, Jen discovered what strategy alone had never been able to give her. To truly transform her relationship with money and her business, she had to heal it, emotionally, energetically, spiritually. She did the inner work. And then she built something new: a framework that holds both the strategy and the soul at the same time.

That's the work she does today. It's the reason her clients get results that pure strategy programs never deliver, because she's not teaching from a textbook. She's teaching from survival.

2023

TEDx Huntington Beach

"Have you ever given up on a childhood dream because someone told you it wouldn't make any money?"

Jen took the TEDx stage and spoke directly to the creative community she'd lived in for decades. The talk challenged creatives not to abandon their artistic dreams and gave them practical, soulful tools for building a healthier relationship with money.

4× Award-Winning Book

"The Creative Code" is published

"The Creative Code: A Creative Professional's Way to Happiness, Wealth and Joy" won four awards, gathered 160+ Amazon reviews, and was featured in The Wall Street Times, The LA Tribune, and Artist Weekly. It became the book creatives said they wished had existed decades earlier.

2024

2026

Cre8tive Con · Chicago

Invited as a main stage speaker alongside Jim Kwik and David Meltzer

Jen was invited as one of two main stage speakers at Cre8tive Con 2026 in Chicago, sharing the stage with Jim Kwik and David Meltzer. Her talk "What Looks Like a Money Problem Is Actually a Positioning Problem" brought her core message to one of the largest creative professional conferences in the country, and she's just getting started.

Street Cred

The receipts

TEDx Speaker

TEDxHuntingtonBeach — "Artistic Dreams: Why You Shouldn't Give Up on Them"

4× Award-Winning Author

"The Creative Code" — 160+ Amazon reviews, featured in The Wall Street Times, LA Tribune, Artist Weekly

Certified Money Coach (CMC)®

Certified Financial Education Instructor. 20+ years in financial services.

25+ Years in Design

Disney, Sony Pictures, Target, Nintendo, Universal Studios, and more.

Top 40 Voices 2025

Voice of Change Magazine — Top 40 Voices Shaping the Future.

CreativeMornings LA Co-Host

Community of nearly 10,000 newsletter subscribers across greater Los Angeles.

The Human Behind the Strategist

A few things
you should know

Tajín belongs on every margarita rim without debate — though her actual drink of choice is a bourbon Old Fashioned.
She co-founded a hip hop dance crew in college that still competes today. She now wants to become a competitive Latin ballroom dancer, and she's completely serious.
Disney personally selected her design for the Lion King DVD release.
She lights up talking about neuroscience, metaphysics, and vibrational wealth. If it rewires your brain and expands your receiving, she's all in.
She's an ENFJ, Enneagram 7, and Manifesting Generator. Her partner calls her Turbo.
She's a breast cancer survivor — and that's part of why she doesn't waste time on work that doesn't matter, clients who don't value her, or pricing that doesn't reflect what she delivers.

Ready to stop attracting
budget clients?

Start with the free Premium Positioning Bundle to find out exactly which positioning mistake is keeping you stuck — and get the tools to fix it.

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25 years in design. 20 years in finance. One breakdown that changed everything.