Meet Cindy Locker of Next Chapter Finances

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cindy Locker.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Our story really begins with lived experience — and a recognition that too many women face major life transitions without anyone in their corner when it comes to finances.
Between the two of us, we bring decades of experience in education, accounting, and personal finance. Cindy’s path wound through economics at Smith College, a certificate in accounting from USC, work with PWC, and years of bookkeeping for businesses ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Carol spent 30 years as a mathematics educator — middle school, high school, and college — before weaving financial literacy into her curriculum and spending five years managing finances for a medical office. Both of us are Certified Personal Finance Counselors.
But the real turning point was personal. In 2016, Carol went through an unexpected divorce that completely upended her world — especially financially. She had always relied on her ex-husband to handle the money, and suddenly she was responsible for everything, with no roadmap and no one to guide her through it. The learning curve was steep, the mistakes were costly, and the emotional toll was real. It took time, but she found her footing. And once she did, she knew she wanted to spare other women from that same painful, isolated experience.
That’s when the idea for Next Chapter Finances took root. In 2023, Cindy and Carol joined forces to launch the business, drawing on everything they had learned — professionally and personally — to create a space where women navigating divorce, loss of a partner, or other major life changes could get honest, compassionate, and practical financial guidance.
We’re based in Columbus, Ohio, and we work one-on-one with clients all over the country to build personalized plans that meet them exactly where they are. We don’t just hand someone a spreadsheet and wish them luck — we walk alongside them, coaching them through the process until they feel confident and in control. That’s always been the heart of what we do: helping women realize that financial clarity isn’t just about the numbers. It’s the foundation for everything else — the dreams, the goals, the next chapter.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth? We have to laugh a little at that question — because the honest answer is absolutely not. And we think that’s actually part of what makes us good at what we do.
One of the most humbling challenges has been the gap between belief and action. Almost everyone we talk to loves what we’re doing and genuinely understands the importance of financial coaching — especially for women navigating major life transitions. The encouragement has been wonderful. But translating that enthusiasm into actually finding and connecting with the clients who need us most? That has been a real and ongoing challenge. Awareness and action are two very different things, and closing that gap has required a lot of creativity, patience, and persistence on our part.
There’s also the reality of how we’ve structured our services. We are deeply committed to making our coaching accessible and genuinely valuable — and the clients who do find us tend to stay with us. They come back because they get more out of working with us than what they’re paying for, and that means the world to us. But it also means we’re constantly thinking about sustainability and how to grow in a way that lets us serve more women without compromising the quality and care that makes our work meaningful in the first place.
Starting a business is also a completely different skill set than coaching clients or standing in front of a classroom. Learning the ins and outs of marketing, building visibility, and figuring out how to reach the right people took real time and a lot of trial and error.
And there’s the emotional weight of the work itself. Our clients come to us at some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives — going through a divorce, grieving the loss of a spouse, facing financial uncertainty for the first time. Holding that space for people, while also running and growing a business, requires a lot of intention and energy.
But every struggle has shaped us. Carol’s experience navigating divorce finances wasn’t just the catalyst for starting this business — it’s a reminder every single day of why this work matters. And when a client tells us that for the first time in her life she feels in control of her money, every hard day feels completely worth it.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At its core, Next Chapter Finances is a financial coaching practice built around life’s pivotal moments. We work with women and couples who are navigating major transitions — divorce, loss of a partner, upcoming retirement, a job change, an inheritance, or simply the frustrating feeling that no matter how much they earn, there never seems to be enough. If you’re spending without a plan, feeling out of control, or lying awake at night worried about money, that’s exactly who we built this for.
What sets us apart is the human element. We don’t hand someone a plan and walk away — we coach. We sit with our clients, listen deeply, and build a roadmap together, staying in it with them every step of the way. Our clients tell us they feel seen and supported in a way they didn’t expect from a financial service, and that means everything to us.
We’re also proud that both of us bring real-world experience — not just professional credentials, but personal ones. Between us, we hold backgrounds in economics, accounting, mathematics education, and business financial management, along with the Certified Personal Finance Counselor designation. But just as importantly, we’ve lived through transitions ourselves. That combination of technical knowledge and genuine empathy is what makes our approach different.
Most of all, we want people to know that financial coaching is more accessible than they might assume — and that it’s never too late to start a new chapter.

How do you think about luck?
We’re firm believers that luck is something you create. Hard work, persistence, and showing up every single day even when results are slow — that’s what builds momentum. And honestly, that belief is at the heart of what we teach our clients too. You don’t stumble into financial stability. You build it, intentionally, one decision at a time.
That said, we’d be less than honest if we didn’t acknowledge that life has thrown some curveballs our way — and that some of those “bad luck” moments turned out to be the greatest gifts in disguise. Carol’s divorce in 2016 was not part of any plan. It was painful, disorienting, and financially overwhelming. But that experience lit the fire that eventually became Next Chapter Finances. What felt like the worst kind of bad luck became the foundation for everything we’ve built.
We’ve also been fortunate in the ways that matter most — in finding each other as partners who complement each other’s strengths, in the clients who trusted us early on and whose stories continue to fuel our mission, and in the Columbus community that has embraced what we’re doing. We don’t take any of that for granted.
So if we had to sum it up, we’d say this: we don’t wait for luck. But we stay grateful when life surprises us — because sometimes the hardest moments are quietly setting the stage for something better than we could have planned.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nextchapterfinances.com
• Instagram: next.chapterfinances
• Facebook: nextchapterfinances
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/next-chapter-finances