Finance Prodigy Kelly Ogbonna Shakes Up the Investment World

The investment world sat up on November 7, 2021 when Forbes magazine named 19 year old Kelechi “Kelly” Ogbonna as one of the 10 up-and-coming entrepreneurs to know and follow. Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Cash Capital Investment Group, an e-learning platform focused on using stock option trading to achieve portfolio advancement for its clients. Kelly shuns the get-rich-quick mentality of some investors and prefer to channel her wealth of knowledge toward educating her clients on the intricate world of finance and investing. NPM editorial team sat down recently with the teenage prodigy to understand what has made her the talk of the global investment community. Enjoy!

NPM: Kelly, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this NPM interview.

OGBONNA: My pleasure to be here.

NPM: Would you give our audience some background information about you. Tell us a little about your upbringing, your parents, anything that allows our audience to get to know you more.

OGBONNA: My name is Kelly Ogbonna. I go by Kelly OG simply because the O and the G are the first two letters of my last name.  Many people have trouble pronouncing my last name. So, I made it a little bit simple. But it’s still Kelly Ogbonna. I am Igbo. The “gb” of course, makes a silent “b” sound.

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. I am Nigerian-American. I was born here in America. However, my entire family is from Nigeria. That is my heritage. I claim it and I am proud of it. I have three siblings, and two amazing parents who support me a ton. I would not be where I am today without them. And, of course, the word of God, I’m very big on my Christian faith. I am a firm believer that everything that has happened in my life is simply because of my relationship with God. Because every time I have strayed from him, and then I have come back to him, I have received a blessing. I know that I have full protection and coverage just having God in my life. I am 19 years old. Many people tell me “you do not look 19” or “you do not sound 19”, but I am 19.  I am really happy and excited to be here.  Every single day, I wake up looking for some way I can be productive by helping other people, or expanding the Word of God and showing that as a child of God, that I am able to influence people. That is just a little bit about me. 

NPM: That is fantastic. Talking about upbringing, being Nigerian Parents Magazine, we do pay a lot of attention to that.  It is wonderful to hear you talk about God and about your faith. Obviously, somebody, perhaps your parents, laid some foundations for you. At 19, you are already so well established. How does your parental upbringing being at home with Nigerian parents keep you grounded? What is the connection between your successes and your upbringing?

OGBONNA: It is so crazy. Yesterday, I was on the phone with one of my friends. He is Yoruba. I was just telling him that I remember when, growing up, in school you see some American kids who have lenient parents, who for the most part let them to do whatever they want. And so growing up, it’s easy for you to look at that and be like: wow! I wish my parents were this lenient. I wish they let me do whatever, go wherever.  We had a rule growing up – I could not sleep over in any friend’s house. It always made me so mad because all my friends would be sleeping over. As I grew up, I started to put myself in a parents’ role.  You do not know what is going on with that person’s house. You do not know who the kid is, who the parents are, what their values are, what their principles are. Therefore, to have your own child go there to spend the night, they are out of your sight overnight. What I am saying is, as I started to grow up, I realized that there were core things that matter. Not letting me go everywhere, staying out super late, just seeing where I am now, and where a lot of those people who I used to wish I was are. And I am not saying this in terms of pinnacles of success. A lot of those people are doing drugs or struggling a lot and not taking life seriously. My family is such a huge backbone to me. They are my number one supporters. They helped me understand a lot of wisdom and they have a lot of wisdom. So for me, I value my parents to an utmost height, because even the Bible says honor your father and your mother, and your days will be long. I do want to live this life for a very long time. They have seen things that I have not seen.  They have understood different aspects of life that I have not understood. My parents are like my number one backbone, my family in general. I go to them for life advice and help. Some people have toxic family households, which is sad. There are so many people on the internet, who I always say, not everyone that is following you on social media has your best interest in mind. Some people follow you to monitor you. Some people want to see you fail. However, my family will support me 100 percent.

NPM: How did you get into the complex world of finance at such a very young age?

OGBONNA: I always tell the story, and I find it to be very funny.  The first time I was introduced to stocks, I was a sophomore in high school. I remember every single Friday, we would have a cookie Fridays. They would give you two cookies for $1 at my school. And I never had $1.  It is so embarrassing now, but I would walk around the cafeteria to people I did not even know begging them for $1 Just to get these two cookies. It is so embarrassing to talk about, because that is sad. I remember I had a friend who always somehow had $1.  I would beg her and I would be like, I will pay you back.  I did pay her back, eventually. All the time, I will always ask her for a dollar, and she always had it.  I asked her, how do you always have money?  She said, well, my mom told me that a woman should never leave the house with less than $20. I was like, wow, my mom never told me that.

At the time, my parents would not let me get a job, simply because, I guess, it was too distracting. So, I went on YouTube, and I searched on how to make money online, because clearly, I could not do it in person at a job. I saw all these videos about these people who were trading stocks. They call it day trading, swing trading, or anything like that.  I would watch their videos, and they would frustrate me, because it was so complex.  I was like, Okay, I need to get into stocks. I joined the stock market class, the following year in high school and it taught me a little bit more about stocks.  

My brother had told me about this company called NIO; they were an EV company and Tesla’s rival at the time. I went to go look at their stock, and they were only selling for $9, when I finally invested months later, they were at $5. I know many people are probably thinking why you would invest in a company that every time you look at it, it is going down. For me, I believe so much in the long-term vision.  Therefore, I bought 10 shares at $50 with $20 to my name. I think, at the time Tesla was $200. It was either I buy one full share of Tesla and have no money, or 10 of Neo and play safe. I obviously chose NIO over Tesla, because I could not go broke and I did not know much about stocks at the time. I got Neo and over the next year and a half Neo went from $5.03 to $1, my investment was just in shambles.  I am not pulling out of this because I am not selling for a loss. Then finally, it started to rally because Biden is President and big on eco-friendliness, and solar energy and all that stuff. NIO started to shoot up, when I say, shoot up, I mean it went from that $1 all the way to around $70. My money actually went from $50 to $650.

One of my friends during quarantine, he was 19 and posted a screenshot of how he spent $40,000 in the month of July. I remember thinking, in order for you to spend $40,000; you have to have $40,000 unless you are just running up debt on a credit card that you cannot afford.  I found out that he was doing this thing called options trading in the stock market. It was when my bank account went negative, I said to myself, I am going to stop chasing money, and I am going to chase the education of it. I invested $26, within two weeks it turned into $3,000.  The second I started trading, I saw the success so quickly.  I wanted to put everybody on; I wanted to teach everyone how to do it. Since then I turned $26 into over $100,000. In addition, I have been able to help several people in my group make six figures trading as well. So yeah, that is really how I got into the world of finance and stocks and all of that.

NPM: You have talked about your parents a bit.  Is there any specific part of your upbringing that prepared you for the financial success that you have achieved?

OGBONNA: On the jacket I have – it is one of my company’s jackets – it says, impact over income, with our logo in the middle.  I was talking to a billionaire investor, he said this to me and it is something I believe too. He said: “when you die, Wells Fargo is not going to be following behind your hearse. You are not going to spend all the money you make on this planet. So yes, the money is so great. However, I would rather know that I helped other people improve their lives.  

When my cousin died, that was when I wanted to improve my relationship with God.  He was only 19. At his memorial, there was not a lot of people, and it was just a little small family gathering with a couple friends. They all told their stories about how he introduced them to God. On his calendar he wrote, pray every day, be a better person; introduce people to the word of God. Just seeing how he was able to affect people, even if it was a small amount of people, caused me to improve my relationship with God. It is not about the numbers. Sometimes people look at the numbers and say I have 100 followers.  My cousin only had maybe 20 friends at that gathering and maybe only like seven of them talked. Just from that tiny amount, you do not realize it is a chain effect.  It is actually a larger numbers because he influenced me and I have impacted 1000s and 1000s, which would have never been possible if not for him.

NPM: I do want to take you up on something you have just said. We have hundreds of 1000s of young people, your age, and even older people who rely on parents or family. What would you say if Nigerian Parents Magazine were to put together a seminar and invite you to talk to our people about money?

OGBONNA: Yes 100%, I actually planned to start in 2022, doing in person events.  I am introducing people to the world of finance and investing, but also just the world of believing in yourself and taking a chance on yourself. Because many people have a lot of big dreams and big goals and the number one issue is starting.  They will say I am going to start tomorrow or let me start on Monday, because it’s the beginning of the week even, or let me start on the first of the month or for their New Year’s resolution. But I ask them: what is stopping you from starting today?

For me, I was at rock bottom; my last $50 was in a Robin Hood account. The only reason I got into trading was because my bank account was negative. At the same time, I do not like to believe that I will fail in anything I do.  In Proverbs, the Bible also says that life and death lies in the power of the tongue. Therefore, everything I speak upon my life, I speak it positively. I do not like to ever say, or even think that I am going to fail at something. I do not think people realize the power of confessing positively over their lives. I know it goes a lot deeper and a whole lot of things. Even if it is everyday believing, writing down your goals, and just saying to yourself, I am going to make it or I am going to succeed, not I do not know if it will work or maybe I should. Recently, I have been trying to document my story through my YouTube and pushing it out.  I think it will be beneficial to many people. I will start 2022. Yes, I want to help people through Nigerian Parents Magazine. Let me know.

NPM: We are going to take you up on that on that offer. Now tell us a little bit about your company

OGBONNA: My Company is Cash Capital Investment Group. We are the number one investing group in the entire world. That is because our success rate is so high; our member retention is super high.  We are big on helping people to understand the world of investing and of course trading. Trading is such a bad connotation, many people say it is super risky, it is not going to work, and you will lose all your money. However, we like to be very conservative with the way we do it. Simply do not put in more money than you are willing to lose. Even if you say I am totally cool with losing $100, we will say have a stop loss plan.  We have the highest rates of return you will see in the world. In the month of September, our return rate was over 20,000%. Which means that if you put $100 into anything, it is 20,000% return. In other words, $100 turns into $20,000 in very short period. Consistently, we are doing 5,000% returns in a week. It is insane.

Yes, we are great at what we do.  I mean, we are not cheap, because we are great. However, we are still affordable to the point where I believe if I have set this price it is because I fully believe that you will make back the amount that you are paying. We educate people on the stock market and options trading. Many people are encouraged to invest, yet, people do not have the capital.  For example, one share of Tesla right now is going for a little over $1,000.  Many people do not have $1,000 just to invest in Tesla and you do not exactly see super high returns. What I tell many people is, you can start by trading, and this is just simple recommendations. A lot with people, who join my group, see my results on social media, which is great, and I want them to see that. I always tell them, listen, I have been doing this for a year now, which is still a very short amount of time to make that much.  I do not like when people ask me is how soon, or how fast or how quickly do you think I can make, you know, however much. I do not like that, because to me, that immediately sounds like a get rich quick scheme.  I tell them there is no limit, especially with options how much you can make.

NPM: Where do you see the company going in the next five years?

OGBONNA: I definitely want us to surpass 50,000 members within the next five to 10 years.  We are 75 people away from 10,000 members, which is huge. I mean, it is just furthering that impact becoming even better at what we do by reaching more people. I love owning the company but at the same time, I will allow it to grow where people will get similar help or even better. I will continue to affect and expand maybe even making this a platform where it will be easier to track things. There was a woman who contacted me the other day; she had made $20,000 that week and $8,000 that day. She was up almost $30,000 for the month. Tesla two weeks ago ran $100 in one day, and one of my members turned $2,000 into $60,000 in one day. I am long term looking to continue to impact people’s lives.   

NPM: Being respectful of your time, we are going to start to wrap up. Is there any message, anything that you would like for our audience to know or hear about you, especially the young people that we have not asked you?

OGBONNA: Listen and respect your parents, because they are knowledgeable. Many times, we may not see it. It is also very important to understand that as young people our brains are not fully developed. So you only know as far as today leads you. However, your parents can see a lot further back because they have experienced a lot more. You can listen to your parents while striving towards your goals. Do not let anyone tell you you cannot do it. Do not wait or pause. Because the longer you wait, the farther you get from achieving your goals.

I always tell people, the three keys to success are discipline, prayer and persistence. Staying persistent and disciplined in what you do despite not wanting to. We wake up in the morning not wanting to do many things but we have to. In addition to these two, prayer is the key. Prayer is a lot deeper than just asking God for something. It is just having that relationship with God. I do not know how many battles that he has fought for me in the background.  I do not know how many people have maybe plotted against me, how many people wanted me to fail. When devil knows that you are destined for greatness he is going to 100% try to get in the way. Continue to chase your dreams and passions. Always have discipline, persistence and prayer in your life because it will truly change your life in ways that you cannot even imagine.

NPM: Discipline, prayer and persistence. I like that. Kelly, you are phenomenal. Thank you very much for finding the time to speak with us today. We will certainly be in touch with you because we want to make sure that as many people as possible hear your story, avail themselves of your services and be a part of your success. So thank you very much for speaking to Nigerian Parents Magazine.

OGBONNA: Thank you.