Mohammad Munnie

The ‘Balancer of the Ledger—and the Legacy’

“Learning to leave more than money behind.”

They call me the financial manager. I manage family money, specifically May Dove, my wife’s family fortune. Some even joke I “married into my job.” They’re not entirely wrong.

But I’ve also spent the last fifteen years trying to grow a fortune I didn’t build—while quietly trying to become a man I could respect. You see, I was raised on different soil than my wife. I’m Muslim. She’s Catholic. I come from a modest, working-class immigrant family. She comes from a legacy family in St. Louis whose name is etched into college buildings and museum wings.

I met May Dove at Wharton. I was on scholarship. She wasn’t. I used to think that made me the lucky one—because I had to earn everything. But I see now how much pressure she was under to be a “good daughter,” to steward a legacy she never asked to carry. We both felt like imposters in different ways.

After we got married, I became the guy who moved spreadsheets, analyzed family office reports, and sat in strategy calls with advisors who never looked me in the eye. My job was to grow the pot. My fear was that, if I didn’t, I’d be seen as the man who let it all slip away.

So I doubled down. On performance. On numbers. On controlling everything I could.

I thought if I could 10x the portfolio, I’d finally feel like I’d made it.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I was building a fortune but starving a family. Our kids were learning how to spend, but not how to feel. They knew how to hide behind last names, but not how to express their own. And I didn’t know how to lead them—because I was still measuring my worth by a number.

It wasn’t until May Dove stood up in a family office seminar and called bullshit on the whole system that I felt something shift. She asked the room: Who’s managing our emotional wealth? And I felt seen. And ashamed. And inspired.

I joined her on this crazy ride into something called Songa. I sat in on the songwriting sessions. Watched my kids break open in ways I never could’ve orchestrated with a 529 plan. I started asking questions I never had time for before—like what kind of legacy I want to leave that can’t be liquidated.

Now I’m still managing the money. But I’m also trying to manage something else: my ego, my expectations, and the man I want to be remembered as.

I’m not just here to pass down wealth.

I’m here to rewrite what it means to be wealthy.