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Kennie Bukky, co-founder of The Pivot Place.
Courtesy: Kennie Bukky
Kennie Bukky, a millennial professional, earned a six-figure salary in 2024 and attributed her high income to two key strategies: building an audience on social media and learning high-paying skills.
Despite being under 30, Bukky balances multiple jobs and earned just over £100,000 (approximately $130,000) in 2024.
However, it was not always like this. When he graduated from college in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science, he felt his prospects seemed bleak.
“Right out of college, I was pretty worried about money, looking at salaries, it just wasn’t that good,” she told CNBC Make It in an interview.
But he knew he wanted a high salary and he set out to make it happen.
“I was very intentional about the career paths I was following and how I traded my time for money,” she explained. “Money has always been an issue… (and) I realized that it’s important to go for high-level careers to mitigate that,” he explained.
This attitude made Bukky pivot towards the financial services sector, where he saw there was money to be made.
He trained to be a compliance officer and has worked in this position for companies such as KPMG and Visa. Now, despite having been on a break from the 9-to-5 job for the past year, she has earned six figures as a full-time content creator, as well as through her work as a digital youth engagement officer, career coach and public speaker. .
Bukky decided to keep his legal name and age private for privacy reasons, and CNBC has verified his earnings through bill statements.
‘I felt like I had a lot of value to share’
Bukky said building a personal brand on social media was key to earning high income.
She has nearly 130,000 followers on TikTok and over 35,000 followers on Instagram and creates content about career advice and wealth creation for her demographic of mostly young and ambitious women of color.
“I just wanted to share my career and my knowledge of personal finance, because I felt like those are things that I mastered from a young age and that I’m really good at,” she said.
“I felt like I had a lot of value to share and that indirectly helped me build a personal brand.”
As a result of his growing audience, he has been able to collaborate with brands such as LinkedIn, German Bank, microsoftACCA, Bing and HSBC on social networks.
Becoming a social media personality gave Bukky the impetus to co-found The Pivot Place in 2023, a company that helps people develop skills to transfer to non-coding tech roles.
‘Skills pay the bills’
Bukky said he is able to charge higher rates for the services he offers because he has invested in improving his skills.
“I firmly believe that when you invest in yourself, in skills and knowledge, that can have a super high ROI (return on investment) in terms of how much you can earn as a person, which is sometimes more than the stock market ever will pay you,” Bukky explained.
When he was 23, Bukky was working as an onboarding analyst at RBS on a salary of £28,000. He then moved into a management position paying £40,000.
“I was very intentional about knowing that I wanted a big jump. I didn’t want to just be here and get a 3% raise every two years,” he explained. “What that involved was opting for a much more important position than the one I held and learning to sell myself with confidence for positions that were much higher.”
Although he was struggling with imposter syndrome at the time, Bukky wanted to challenge his perception of what he was capable of. To prepare for the position, he did a lot of self-study using free online resources.
He advised young people trying to reach a six-figure salary to look for ways to develop “high-income skills” that increase the value of their time. Bukky recommended taking courses, joining communities or boot camps, or even starting a side hustle to do this.
“Skills pay the bills. You need to develop high-income skills. You don’t need to stay stagnant in terms of how much your time is worth,” he added.
