Investing in Neurodiversity

Next on Crucial Conversations About Cognitive Diversity

Charlotte Valeur, a former international investment banker and the founder of the Institute of Neurodiversity, along with her son Giles Valeur Adu, a rising star in the music world, will join Maria Kennedy this Wednesday, March 15th at 1 pm PT, on the webcast, Crucial Conversations About Cognitive Diversity. They will discuss their amazing careers, their neurodiverse diagnoses, and how to discover and pursue passion. Click here to register.

After several decades in the financial field, Charlotte created the Institute of Neurodiversity (ION) in Geneva, Switzerland in 2020. By emphasizing the positive contributions of neurodiverse individuals, the ION seeks to sponsor research, influence policy, create networks, provide support, and advocate for those on the spectrum. Currently, the ION has branches in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia with a goal to help integrate neurodivergent communities around the world.

Neurodiverse people “are everywhere in everything, all layers, all cultures,” she recently told the Financial Times, “but marginalized to degrees, which is something that needs to stop. The ultimate goal is that we don’t need all the sub-labels; that we are simply being accepted for who we are, as people in society.”

Charlotte notes that her life-long hyper-focus on numbers was probably an early indicator of her autism, although she wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood. “I used to write down license plates as a little girl,” she said recently, “because I liked looking at lines of numbers. So going into a world of numbers worked really well for me. To be honest, on the stock exchange there seemed to be a lot of people like me.”

Charlotte, alo...