Hall was born June 27, 1952, in Crawfordville, Florida, one of seven children to a family of farmers, day workers and fishermen. Interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme Midweek he said that his grandmother had told him he was "everything she had", something that helped him get through difficult financial decisions; she was also a great saver and gave him 50 dollars when he was heading to Yale university. He grew up in severe poverty. He studied for a Bachelor of Arts in English at Bowdoin College and a Master of Arts in American literature at the University of North Carolina. After a period of unemployment and working as a college professor, he started to take an interest in finance. In 2016, February 27 was declared Alvin Hall Day to celebrate his success and influence on his hometown. He is well loved in the UK and US and respected in his field.
Financial adviser
Hall started buying shares a few at a time. His ability to translate complex financial concepts into simple English through the use of slices of cake led to him becoming director of course development at Leo Fleur, a company selling training materials for Wall Street examinations. In 1986 he became director of marketing for the Chicago-based Longman Financial Services Institute in creating and implementing marketing campaigns for training programmes and products and consequently was executive director of the New York Institute of Finance. He is the president of Cooperhall Press and designs and runs seminars for financial institutionsaround the world. In 1990, Hall briefly lectured British stockbrokers in London in preparation for the NASD exams in the United States. Hall has written books and articles on saving and investing as well as debt management. He presented Your Money or Your Life on BBC2 and has made various television and radio appearances. He has also appeared on as a panelist on several occasions. He also edits a money column in the UK's Reveal magazine. He has written Money Magic for the charitable organisationQuick Reads which encourages people to get back into the habit of reading. He was involved in Jamie Oliver's programme, Jamie's Dream School. On the programme, Hall taught the pupils mathematics.
Hall has presented several finance-related radio programmes for BBC Radio 4, which often broadcast in the period when Radio 4's personal finance programme Money Box is off-air. Hall won the Wincott Award for business journalism for his 2006 documentary ' in which he interviewed and profiled the entrepreneurial rap starJay-Z. 2011
': four programmes in which Alvin Hall assesses whether today's youth will be worse off than their parents.2010
': Alvin Hall helps four different generations plan for an uncertain future and explores the economic bonds that tie them together
2009
': Alvin Hall examines the continuous rise in executive pay.2008
': Alvin Hall asks where investors put their money during the time of a credit crunch.
2006
': Profile of the rap entrepreneur Jay-Z.
Alvin Hall's Secret Collection: Hall gains access to remarkable private art collections.
