Preet Banerjee is the host of the television show Million Dollar Neighbourhood on the Oprah Winfrey Network, a personal financial expert, and winner of the reality TV series The Ultimate W Expert Challenge, which aired on the W Network in Canada during the summer of 2009. He was subsequently named a W Network Money Expert. He writes a personal finance column for The Globe and Mail and is also author of the Canadian personal finance blog which was voted Canada's #1 Investment Blog in 2010 by readers of The Globe and Mail. In 2012, he launched a personal finance podcast which currently ranks as one of the most popular financial podcasts on iTunes.
Career
Banerjee graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from University of Toronto Scarborough in 2001. He immediately enrolled in the Bridgestone Racing Academy in hopes of becoming a racecar driver, and missed his university convocation to instead participate in the racing school's curriculum. After graduating from the Bridgestone Racing Academy in 2001, Banerjee returned to the Academy to serve as their Operations Manager from 2002 until 2004. He started his career in the financial services as a Consultant shortly thereafter with Investors Group Financial Services in Whitby, Ontario. He remained there for two years before deciding that a largely proprietary product offering was not an ideal solution for all Canadian investors. Banerjee left Investors Group Financial Services to join ScotiaMcLeod, the wealth management division of The Bank Of Nova Scotia, as a stockbroker and financial planner, although he never held a recognized financial planning designation. While there he became acquainted with passive investment management strategies and his client portfolios soon became dominated by index funds and exchange-traded funds which Banerjee claimed was the basis of rational portfolio construction. He also preferred offering clients their choice of how to pay fees: 1. Transactional, 2. Percentage-of-assets, or 3. Fee-for-service and emphasized transparency within advisor-client relationships. Banerjee was described as part of "the new breed of financial advisors" by The National Post. Banerjee was one of less than one hundred Canadian financial advisors who sold Dimensional Fund Advisors' "enhanced" index funds, which combine elements of active and passive management. He was also an early adopter of fundamental indexation, specifically the FTSE RAFI methodology created by Robert Arnott's firm Research Affiliates. He joined Pro-Financial Asset Management as Senior Vice President in late 2008, responsible for institutional sales, product development and general education of financial advisors as well as the public on the discussion between active management and passive management. Pro-Financial Asset Management is a mutual fund manufacturer specializing in the FTSE RAFI fundamental index funds. He left Pro-Financial abruptly in June 2011.
Financial Commentator
Banerjee appears regularly in print, TV and radio media as an expert commentator. In late 2010, he became a regular contributor to CBC's The National with Peter Mansbridge's "" panel which discusses money issues for Canadians. In late 2011, CBC made the decision to increase the frequency of The Bottom Line panel to a monthly basis. The panel also includes Patricia Croft, Amanda Lang and Jim Stanford. He has filled in for Kevin O'Leary as co-host of CBC's The Lang and O'Leary Exchange on an infrequent basis and has also appeared on CTV and Global National News.
WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com Blog
Banerjee launched his personal finance and investing blog, on July 23, 2007. It reached 1.5 million cumulative pageviews by 2011.
Mostly Money, Mostly Canadian Podcast
On April 27, 2012, Banerjee published the first episode of his new personal finance podcast, . The first five episodes each reached #1 on iTunes in both the "Business" and "Investing" categories. The podcast carries an R-rating and features interviews with notable personal finance and investing personalities.
Awards and Notables
Honorary board member of , which seeks to increase food security in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia. Awarded first place in the on May 10, 2013. Nominated for a . Named one of by Advisor.ca in 2011. Member of the championship winning team in the Junior Math Challenge for the city of London, Ontario in 1987.
