Cydney O’Sullivan was born in Venice, California, in the 1960s. She spent her childhood in British Hong Kong, but despite being surrounded by excess and opulence, she had little money of her own and vowed to discover the secrets to creating wealth.

While most of her friends went on to attend prestigious European universities, Cydney’s family moved back to California to retire on a pension and the income they derived from their modest investment properties. And Cydney found she was only qualified for a job as a restaurant cashier at $3.25 an hour.

Cydney worked her way up the corporate ladder and fell in love with Australia on a visit in 1987. For Cydney, Australia was the most wonderful land of entrepreneurial opportunities. She met and married an Australian, and over the next 15 years they built businesses and had two beautiful children.

When her marriage failed because of money pressures, she decided to get serious about her financial education and taught herself about real estate investing and trading on the stock market from her home office while the children were at school. With the experience she gained through buying and selling more than 12 properties, she jumped in at the start of the greatest ‘Bull Run’ in Australian stock market history with $200,000. She now holds multimillion-dollar property, business and stock portfolios and earns millions of dollars through her share trading and investing businesses.

Her latest adventure, the Ms Independence projects, have been created to help other people, women in particular, to learn how to build their own financially secure futures and create wealth through fun interactive programs, books, CDs and workshops (with an emphasis on philanthropic community-building and personal empowerment).

Cydney enjoys writing, water and snow skiing, visiting her friends around the world, learning how things work, and hanging out with inspiring people.