About MKé Exchange

A place for ambitious people to connect, exchange ideas, and build what's next.

I'm Malachi K. Battle — an engineer, MBA, community builder, and the founder of MKé Exchange. This platform is where my interests in growth, entrepreneurship, money, careers, and meaningful connection come together.

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Founder

I've always been trying to build, learn, and connect.

My professional path started in engineering. I earned a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics with honors from The University of Alabama, completed a French minor, and later earned an MBA. Along the way, I served twice as president of Alabama's National Society of Black Engineers chapter and kept finding myself drawn to leadership, community, media, and the people behind the work.

As my career moved me from city to city, I kept meeting ambitious people with ideas, goals, lessons, and stories worth sharing. Those experiences shaped how I thought about community and the kind of platform I wanted to build.

I started WealthWiseLive because I was a first-generation university graduate trying to learn how to handle money well. I wanted to make sure I was setting myself up for retirement, building wealth intentionally, creating strong relationships for the future, and bringing other people along for the ride instead of figuring everything out alone.

What began as a personal finance learning journey kept expanding as I did. The conversations moved beyond money into careers, entrepreneurship, leadership, relationships, personal growth, and the bigger question of how to build a life you are proud of.

As I grew, the idea grew with me. WealthWiseLive eventually became MKé Exchange — a broader platform for people to exchange ideas, experiences, opportunities, and perspective while building what comes next.

How it got here

The platform kept changing as I did.

MKé Exchange started as WealthWiseLive, a project I created to learn about personal finance as a first-generation university graduate and help others learn alongside me. Over time, the mission expanded with my own life — from money to careers, entrepreneurship, relationships, community, and personal growth.

Cedar Rapids · Early '25

Virtual first. Mostly personal finance.

After entering the rotational program and moving to Cedar Rapids, I started building what was then WealthWiseLive. It was almost completely virtual and content-based, with a heavier focus on personal finance. I was learning in public, creating conversations online, and figuring out what people actually responded to.

Expanding Topics · Late '25

The conversations got wider.

Over time, the platform expanded beyond personal finance into entrepreneurship, careers, leadership, mindset, and the experiences people carry into each of those areas. I added a newsletter and started treating the conversations less like isolated pieces of content and more like an ongoing exchange of ideas.

Riverside · Mid '26

The first Wealth Social changed the shape of it.

When my rotation took me to Riverside, California, I kept broadening the conversations and tried something I had never done before: an in-person event. That first Wealth Social turned the platform from something people mostly watched into something people could walk into. I kept the series going and hosted seven socials in Riverside.

Jamestown · Late '26

Now I get to build it again in a new place.

Now the rotational program has brought me to Jamestown, North Dakota. The name has changed, the platform has grown, and the format is broader than where it started. It has been amazing to watch a virtual finance-focused project become something with conversations, resources, a newsletter, and real rooms full of people.

Mission

Educate, connect, and help people move forward together.

MKé Exchange exists to help people learn, make better decisions, and build a strong network of ambitious people who are willing to share what they know, open doors, and help one another grow.

Vision

A well-functioning ecosystem of conversations, events, and amazing experiences.

The vision is for each part of MKé Exchange to strengthen the others — conversations that spark ideas, events that create relationships, resources that help people act, and experiences that keep the network growing stronger over time.

The four pillars

What sits behind every MKé Exchange experience.

Meaningful Exchange

Conversations should leave people with something worth carrying forward.

Ambitious Community

Bring together people who are building, learning, and stretching toward something bigger.

Practical Ideas

Insight matters most when it can influence a real decision or next step.

Cultural Momentum

Great rooms and great ideas can reshape what people believe is possible.