Kennie Bukky, co-founder of The Pivot Place.
Courtesy: Kenny Buckey
Millennial professional Kennie Bukky earned a six-figure salary in 2024 and attributes her high income to two key strategies: building an audience on social media and learning high-paying skills .
Although Bukky is not yet 30 years old, she juggles multiple jobs and earned just over £100,000 (approximately $130,000) in 2024.
However, this is not always the case. When she graduated from college in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science, she felt her prospects were bleak.
She said in an interview with CNBC Make It: “I was very concerned about money right after I graduated from college. Looking at the salary, it was actually not that good.”
But she knew she wanted a high salary, so she started working toward that goal.
“I was very intentional about what career path I wanted to take and how I would trade my time for money,” she explains. “Money has always been an issue… (and) I realized it was important to pursue a high-end career so I could alleviate that problem,” she explained.
This attitude prompted Bukky to turn to financial services, where she believed there was money to be made.
She trained as a compliance officer and has held this position at companies including KPMG and Visa. Now, despite spending the past year freeing herself from her 9-to-5 job, she’s earning six number of digits.
Bukky has chosen to keep her legal name and age private for privacy reasons, and CNBC has verified her earnings through invoice statements.
“I feel like I have a lot of value worth sharing.”
Bucky said building a personal brand on social media is key to earning a high income.
She has nearly 130,000 followers on TikTok and more than 35,000 followers on Instagram and creates content around career advice and wealth building for her audience of primarily young, ambitious women of color.
“I just wanted to share my professional and personal finance knowledge because I feel like these are things that I picked up at a very young age and did really well,” she said.
“I feel like I have a lot of value that’s worth sharing, which indirectly allows me to build a personal brand.”
As her audience continues to grow, she’s been able to partner with brands like LinkedIn, Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, ACCA, Bing and HSBC on social media.
Becoming a social media celebrity gave Bukky the motivation to co-found The Pivot Place in 2023, a business that helps people build skills to transition into non-coding technical roles.
“Skills pay the bills”
Bucky said she was able to charge more for the services she provided because she invested in upskilling.
“I’m a firm believer that when you invest in yourself, your skills and your knowledge, you can get a super high ROI (return on investment) in terms of what you can earn as a person, sometimes more than what you earn high.
At 23, Bukky was working as an entry analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), earning a salary of £28,000. She was subsequently promoted to a management position with a salary of £40,000.
“I knew very intentionally that I wanted a huge jump. I didn’t want to just be here and get a 3 percent raise every few years,” she explains. “It involved taking on a role that was much more senior than the one I was in and learning to confidently market myself for a fairly senior role.”
Even though she was suffering from imposter syndrome at the time, Bucky wanted to challenge her perception of her abilities. To prepare for the role, she conducted extensive self-study using free online resources.
She advises young people who want to earn six-figure salaries to look for ways to develop “high-income skills” to increase the value of their time. Bucky recommends taking a course, joining a community or bootcamp, or even starting a side hustle to do this.
“Skills pay the bills. You need to develop high-income skills. You can’t stand still when it comes to value of time,” she added.
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