Episode 29: Leave Your Fear at the Mountain with Rahwa Teklai
On this episode, I sit down with the remarkable Rahwa Teklai—SVP and Market Leader at Key Private Bank. She's a certified financial planner, ultra-endurance athlete, and radiant force of optimism. Rahwa shares her powerful life story, starting with her early years in East Africa and her family’s immigration journey from Eritrea to the U.S., emphasizing how resilience, mindset, and community helped shape her path.
Key Themes and Insights:
Optimism vs. Positivity: Rahwa defines optimism as long-term hope and positivity as the daily practice that helps you get there. Both are necessary—and deeply intertwined.
Leave Your Fear at the Mountain: Drawing from her experience as a mountain climber and ultra-runner, Rahwa introduces this beautiful metaphor: fear will always be there, but we can choose to leave it behind when we decide to climb.
Acclimatizing to Growth: Just like mountain climbers must ascend and descend to adapt, personal growth requires dips and failures to prepare us for greater heights.
Pursuit Beyond the Summit: Rahwa and Katie explore the idea of the “second mountain” from David Brooks’ book—moving beyond personal success to purposeful contribution. Rahwa is on that journey, seeking to give back in the same way others poured into her life.
Purpose-Driven Mindset: Whether in finance, fitness, or life, Rahwa attributes her progress to desire, intention, persistent practice, and a community of supporters. She challenges listeners to find their mountain and start climbing, setbacks and all.
Unconventional Truth Bomb: Rahwa questions the saying “time is more valuable than money,” suggesting that without resources, time alone can be limiting. She believes in the harmony of time, money, and adventure as essential to a fulfilling life.
This episode is a beautiful fusion of personal story, practical wisdom, and deep encouragement. It reminds us that our comfort zone isn’t where growth happens, and that mindset, like a muscle, gets stronger the more we stretch it.
About Rahwa Teklai
As the Market Leader for the Hudson Valley/Metro NY & Eastern PA markets, Rahwa leads the Private Bank team to deliver comprehensive, integrated planning, investment, trust, and banking solutions for high net worth families. Through a team-based approach, Key Private Bank advisors implement a disciplined planning approach which simplifies the complex needs of clients to help them grow, preserve, and transfer wealth.
Prior to joining Key, Rahwa served as the Central PA Market Leader for PNC Private Bank, her previous roles with PNC included Wealth Director and senior strategist positions in Insurance and Wealth. Prior to that, she held positions with Lincoln Financial Group, MetLife, TIAA-CREF and Vanguard in a variety of capacities over her 25+ year wealth management career. Rahwa holds a B.S. in Finance from Penn State University and is a Certified Financial Planner®.
She resides in King of Prussia, PA and enjoys ultra endurance athletics. Connect with Rahwa on LinkedIn