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The Alternatives Mason: Building Alts Knowledge Brick by Brick | Episode 6 | Breaking Down Barriers featuring Kelly Ann Winget
5 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to The Alternatives Mason: Building Alts Knowledge Brick by Brick. Banrion Capital Management uses technology to help independent advisors scale and educate themselves on alternative investments. Since education is such a big piece of the Banrion mission and business, we are excited to kick off this series to dive into the nits and grits of the alternatives space. Episode 6 "Breaking Down Barriers" Features Kelly Ann Winget.
Kelly Ann Winget is the Founder of the Dallas-based private equity company, Alternative Wealth Partners (AWP). Alternative Wealth Partners provides access to digestible information about alternative investments and educates investors about the opportunities available off Wall Street. AWP expertly sources alternative investments that give investors unmatched access to real returns.
Kelly is also the author of "Pitch The Bitch: Grab Your Financial Future By The Bags". Don’t pitch the bitch” is a phrase popularized by the movie Boiler Room (2000), advising stockbrokers not to try to sell to women. Pitch the Bitch walks through the female experience in the investment world, on both sides of the financial transaction. Kelly Ann Winget recounts her journey—from selling car washes as a teenager to her career today as the only millennial, LGBTQ+ manager of a solo-female-founded private equity fund—to help women understand why the investment wealth gap exists and how to close it.
The daughter of a fifth-generation oil and gas family with assets in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, Kelly Ann has over a decade of experience in the alternative investment space sourcing creative capital for startups, oil and gas companies, manufacturing ventures, real estate, and several other emerging markets on behalf of high net worth/income clients. Over her career, she has successfully raised almost $1 billion in private capital for private placement opportunities. After a decade of building other firm's reputations, she formed AWP in 2020 to offer clients the best of what the private market can offer. Her background and experience allow her to relate easily to a wide range of investors, helping her communicate and manage investors’ goals.
Now, she leverages her own reputation in the industry to get exclusive access to private investments. Kelly Ann offers investors the opportunity to diversify across the board with a single investment through targeted private equity funds, which is for accredited investors who are looking for a diversified portfolio of alternative, tax-advantaged and high-yielding investments. AWP Offers funds that range from completely diversified private equity to tax-advantaged, energy, and real estate funds.
Kelly Ann gives back to the community in areas that have been lifelong interests. As a teen, she competed in the National Forensics League; now she donates her time to the organization, judging local and national tournaments and helping students prepare for competition. In addition, she spearheads fundraisers for children’s causes, particularly health, including Wipe Out Kids’ Cancer. She is also a partner and speaker with Diversity Crew, an organization focused on providing corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion programming while improving bottom-line results.
In her spare time, Kelly Ann enjoys travel, her family, and her two big cuddly dogs. A foodie, she is always on the search for a new creative restaurant.
Learn More about Alternative Wealth Partners (AWP)
Learn More about Kelly Ann Winget
Follow on LinkedIn Kelly Ann Winget
Buy Kelly's Book: Pitch the Bitch: Financial Future by the Bags
Host Brit
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Transcript
Introduction to Alternatives Mason Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Alternatives Mason Podcast with host Brittany Mason, Chief of Staff at Bonner & Capital Management. You'll learn how to build alternatives knowledge brick by brick. Bonner & Capital Management uses technology to help independent advisors scale and educate themselves on alternative investments. And since education is such a big piece of what we do, we are excited to kick off the series to dive into the nits and grips of the alternative space.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hi everyone, it is Brittany Mason and we are back for another episode of the alternative Mason where we are building all knowledge brick by brick. I am very excited today about a very special guest that we have on this episode.
Meet Kelly Ann Wingett
00:00:44
Speaker
Kelly Ann Wingett is an accomplished alternative investment expert and the founder of an alternative and wealth partners, AWP, the first private equity firm founded and led by
00:00:56
Speaker
a millennial openly LGBTQ woman, Kellyanne has raised close to one billion in capital for startups, energy companies, manufacturing ventures, real estate, and other key emerging markets. She is also the author of Pitch the Bitch, Hosts of the Wealth of Health.
00:01:14
Speaker
podcast, and a sought after keynote speaker and panelist who has shared her expertise in finance, entrepreneurship, and diversity topics at events like the Alta Expo, Women Working in Wealth, and WE Global Studies Rev-Up Summits.
00:01:30
Speaker
Thank you so much, Kelly, for joining us today. I'm really excited to have you on the show. You're actually our first woman on the podcast that I had as a guest. I'm very excited, because as you know, Bonnerian Capital is female-led, so always want to give more platforms to women in this space. So thank you so much for joining
Kelly Ann's Journey in Finance
00:01:48
Speaker
us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. We're one of, like, 10. Doing what we do, so it's always exciting to see another powerhouse woman out there.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yes, yes, we need more women in this space. So I want to jump right in and just really understand what your journey has been to the finance industry. Were you always interested in finance? Was this always a path that you saw for yourself?
00:02:14
Speaker
So I was really fortunate to grow up in a household where money wasn't an off the table topic. You know, you're not supposed to be talking about religion or money at the table. That was kind of what we talked about all the time and still do. Both my parents were financial professionals. My mother
00:02:30
Speaker
CPA account and my father worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers for 27 years. So it was not an unfamiliar topic for me. When I was a teenager, I actually wanted a really expensive pair of jeans and my parents were like, this is our money, go figure it out on your own. And so I went and got a job in sales. I sold car washes part-time in high school and was
00:02:55
Speaker
earning about $60,000 a year as a teenager. So, which is pretty significant. And no teenager who's 15, 16 years old should be making that kind of money with like no guardrails. And so I learned a lot, you know, in my formative years coming out of school that I, one, I liked money and two, I liked figuring out how to make more money. And eventually that led me into the career finance through oil and gas. Now I'm five generations in oil and gas, so I was going to find my way there one way or another.
00:03:24
Speaker
but I did it on my own and I worked with a company at the height of the oil and gas boom back in 2013-14 when we saw oil prices $130 a barrel last time. The company that I was working for was overpaying for assets and I threw up a bunch of red flags for me as somebody that's pretty familiar with the industry and I said, this is probably not the space to be in right now. About eight months later, the oil market corrected $30 a barrel. It was pretty bad.
00:03:51
Speaker
But at that point, I had kind of like found a passion behind one working with investors, because I came from a high net worth space and so I just knew how to work with that kind of a fluent audience. I worked with startups, real estate firms, basically anything in the private equity space that was raising capital for the last 10 years.
00:04:11
Speaker
helping them navigate the conversations with high net worth individuals, and then also switching later in my career to educating investors on how to source and do due diligence in privately owned companies because there's not a lot of regulation in this space.
The Creativity in Private Equity
00:04:26
Speaker
And so when investors want access to this, they typically get very little information and they don't really know how to process that.
00:04:33
Speaker
In 2020, I decided to launch my own firm because I kind of escalated through my career up into the private wealth and family office institutional space. So then I was working with companies that had several billion dollars under management and realized that I was the smartest person in the room, which should be terrifying to people.
00:04:53
Speaker
And I took that as my sign of, you know, I could probably just do this on my own. And in the middle of the pandemic, I said, this is a great time to start a business and started a financial firm in the middle of that. We launched our first diversified fund in June of 2021.
00:05:12
Speaker
It's basically like kind of a trial of all alternatives for investors. They could take a single lump sum of capital invested into a diversified fund and that fund is invested in 27 different portfolio companies. It's similar to how venture works except for these are more mature companies or we're directly invested in tangible assets like real estate or oil and gas.
00:05:33
Speaker
We closed that fund with $17 million in March of 2022 or 2023 this year, sorry. And we're working on an energy fund and some other funds that are more tax advantaged because one of my passions outside of making money is also not paying taxes on that money. So I'm really, really intentional about structuring our funds and our investment opportunities in tax efficient ways because we like to make the money and keep that money. And that's kind of our prerogative.
00:06:03
Speaker
Absolutely. Wow. There's so much to dig in there. You're such a force. I mean, to start a, you know, a business during the pandemic and to see that opportunity when most people were living in the space of fear, you know, and you went out there, you took that risk and now you've built this incredible, you know, business.
Women in Investment: A Different Approach
00:06:21
Speaker
So what exactly about, you know, private equity do you feel is the most exciting for you to dig into and how you gravitate towards that space?
00:06:33
Speaker
Private equity is really interesting because it encompasses so much, right? Private equity is the asset class that holds venture capital, growth capital and these leveraged buyout opportunities in the business space, whether it's tech or anything else.
00:06:48
Speaker
I think that for me, what I like best about private equity is the ability to be really creative because you are in complete control of that deal at whatever phase you're invested in. If you're the first money in the door, in most cases in venture capital, then you can be really creative with that company of how you're going to be partnered with them, whether
00:07:07
Speaker
You're going to be a passive partner just being a capital person, or if you're going to be an advisor and be part of the growth throughout whatever phase they grow into. We kind of focus in the growth space, just because I want companies that are a little bit more mature.
00:07:23
Speaker
The owners have more blood, sweat and tears involved. So it's not like, here's my idea on a napkin. Let's go get this funded. It's more like I've poured my entire life into this for the last five years and have now broken over even. And so please help me scale. Um, I just feel like there's a lot of synergy in, in that space for me. And that's why we invest a lot of money there. Um, that's what I love private equity for that.
00:07:51
Speaker
I love it. And it's amazing, you know, that you found that so early on as well, you know, and that it's so important, you know, that we teach children at a young age and build that foundation with that relationship with money. It dictates so much of, you know, the fabric of our life. It's just intertwined with so many areas of our life as we
00:08:10
Speaker
grow and get older. So I think it's amazing that you grew up in that kind of environment, in that household, and you learned at a very young age the importance of money. And to be making 60,000 at such a young age, that is just remarkable. I mean, there's many adults that don't have those types of jobs, especially right now with such times.
00:08:35
Speaker
So do that. I mean, if you talk to anybody about where do you make the most money, it's in a sales position. I mean, at the root of it, all financial services is sales, sales and service. So those are the types of things that I've been in since I started my working career at 15 with sales and services. And it's about recognizing somebody's need and having a solution for that.
00:08:59
Speaker
And so you just take that mindset into any industry that you're in. And so with my firm, that is what we're doing. We are recognizing a need, people wanting options outside of the stock market, transparency and room to understand without pressure.
00:09:16
Speaker
and the support through how that investment grows. And so that is the service we provide and we sell it to people because no one knows anything about it. If you were to Google alternative investments, like you're gonna get the same like three gurgitated articles from Investopedia that's like, it's not socks, bonds, or cash. It's like, okay, but what does that mean? And how do I get involved?
Overcoming Bias in Finance
00:09:37
Speaker
And so I try to do a lot of education, like the speaking and things that I do is about just, here's the space that exists
00:09:45
Speaker
Here are the qualifications for you to be able to participate in this space as an investor. And even if you don't have a million dollars. There's still alternatives that you can invest in outside of the stock market real estate doesn't have a barrier of entry precious metals doesn't have a barrier to entry art wine collectibles.
00:10:05
Speaker
you know, the cryptocurrency, there's no barrier of entry there. So you can get really creative with your portfolio outside of your 401k and your retirement accounts or your savings accounts and these types of things. You don't really need to understand that space because most people have an advisor that does that work for them. It's an interesting thing because there is definitely a shift
00:10:25
Speaker
in the investor mindset for more impactful investing. People are more intentional with the investments that they're making. And so several of our venture investments we've made is focused on data and access to customizable portfolios. So we have technology that can actually take apart a mutual fund or an ETF or whatever, and actually pull out things that you don't support.
00:10:52
Speaker
and keep the ones that you do so that you truly have a custom portfolio that matches your wants and needs as an investor. And on the data side, actually knowing what you want and need is hard. You don't know where to start, what questions to ask yourself. And so we've invested in a company that helps you create that profile. Then you have a tangible
00:11:15
Speaker
dashboard of yourself, right? That you can then give to whoever you want. That's your piece of information to give out. And then you can have the service professionals provide you the services that you actually want need with you in control of all that information. So it's a cool space to be in. Did you have like an aha moment where you were like, this is missing. And this is why I have to do this.
00:11:39
Speaker
Um, because I've been exclusively in alternatives for 13 years, when there started to be kind of this buzz about venture and, um, now, especially there's a lot of women's, uh, investment clubs and things, trying to learn how to invest in other things. It was kind of like, Oh, okay. I've been in this space for a really long time. I thought everybody knew about it. I just thought it was gate kept.
00:12:02
Speaker
And, but its reality is like, no one knows about it. It's more than just being gate kept, you know, like there's very, it's very intentional about how they're keeping the masses of everyday millionaires away from these kinds of generational wealth building assets, energy infrastructure, these types of things. So it was definitely
00:12:23
Speaker
2020 was my moment where I was in a room full of people that were worth a lot more money than me managing a lot more money than I'll ever manage. And it was like, okay, there's a problem here. And, uh, and I'm going to solve it by just telling everybody about it. I love it. So why not something, a statement that you have said, and, uh, it's very powerful. So you talk about money is powerful, but in the hands of women.
00:12:51
Speaker
it is even more powerful. So can you elaborate? Sure. So there's definitely a difference between
Empowering Women in Finance
00:12:58
Speaker
how men invest and women invest. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but women over the lifetime of their investment will earn more than men just because they're more patient and they've made a decision and they stick to it. So they don't move money around as much as men do. Men,
00:13:16
Speaker
of the two emotional beings that we are, men are very emotional when it comes to their investments. And so when there's something crazy going on in one place, they have a tendency, if there's liquidity in their investment, to move it around out of panic or not understanding or whatever.
00:13:34
Speaker
They take bigger risks so they have higher returns in that sense. But as far as like the stability of their portfolio over their lifetime, they will lose money because they move it around a lot. So it's kind of interesting to see that. But the one thing that makes women powerful when they have money is that
00:13:51
Speaker
the decisions that they make are more long-term and also they reinvest more of that capital. So almost 90 cents to every dollar a woman invests gets reinvested in their community compared to a man's like, I think it's up to 30% now, but it used to be like really low. It used to be less than 10 cents that men would reinvest in their community. So these are the two ways that money can be moved around and create significant change.
00:14:20
Speaker
globally, you know, society, whatever, is that women are more intentional with their money. And that is where that power comes from. Yes. Yes, we are. So have you, have you had any challenges being a woman in this industry?
00:14:35
Speaker
Um, yes, yes and no. So I know it's a really difficult capital raising atmosphere right now for anybody that's out there raising capital on funds or even their own startups, things like that. They're having a really difficult time fundraising, especially if they're women, especially if they're a minority.
00:14:53
Speaker
But for the most part, you know, we don't have that same struggle, one, because I'm dealing with both old white men who have money and everybody else. Right. And traditionally I've raised a lot of money from old white men and, um, it doesn't make that bad or different or anything. It's just, I look like they're granddaughters. So it's really hard to tell me no. Um, so there's advantage. So you use it to your advantage. Yeah. I mean, I'm able to bridge this.
00:15:22
Speaker
gap between the emerging manager that they have in their mind, that might be scary, to the access of, I can take their money and they get to benefit from the investment, but I also get to take their money and partner it with people who haven't had access to this asset class.
00:15:42
Speaker
to give everyone the return from the assets that we have money to buy. So I take money from both sides of the aisle. I take money from all walks of life. And that's because I can work with any person. I don't care as long as they qualify to invest in the investment.
00:16:03
Speaker
did a lot of work last year to change our limited partner makeup from majority of old white men, right, which is necessary to more minorities. So about in earlier this year, we flipped from 60-40 old white man to 60-40 like diverse women.
00:16:25
Speaker
So that was really exciting because now I have like our energy fund. We invest in oil and gas is almost, I think there's three men in there and the rest women, which is really cool to see because these were people that never knew this asset existed or they knew it existed, but didn't know how to invest in it. I thought that only people in Texas got to invest in oil and gas. And so, um,
00:16:50
Speaker
You know, it's really interesting to see the switch because there is definitely a hunger out there for people to invest.
Financial Literacy for Women
00:16:58
Speaker
And there's almost 30 million millionaires in the United States and they're not all white men. Right. Right. Yeah. We need more female advisors. We need more women in the industry to be able to establish those, you know, relationships because so much of this is, you know, based on your relation, your relationships, human relationships. Yeah.
00:17:20
Speaker
So can you share some more insights about women investors and their impact on the financial industry and where you see trends of more women developing in different spaces in finance?
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, you can see a trend starting as far as popularity and headlines where you see people like Serena Williams starting a venture capital firm, Kim Kardashian launching a private equity company, which I think is really just making sure that she can invest in the things that she wants to invest in and not get in trouble with the SEC for promoting blockchain.
00:17:59
Speaker
I think that there's a lot more popularity around it, because you have kind of big name celebrities starting to be more public about the things that they're doing with their money, which is really cool because
00:18:15
Speaker
women aren't brought to the conversation at all anyways. And so that has shifted. I've been doing this for 13 years. So probably in the last five years, it went from me only speaking to the husband about investment opportunities to now speaking to them individually or as a couple. So that both of them are involved in some way.
00:18:35
Speaker
And the interesting thing that happened when I launched my fund was I was speaking to couples a lot. And what happened was that the man would invest $50,000 and his wife would invest $200,000.
00:18:50
Speaker
just because they were brought to the conversation from the beginning. And while the husband wanted to support it, understood the investment, the other person was like, no, I totally get this and I trust this person, right? And that's the shift. It doesn't change that my male investors who fit the traditional makeup of somebody who's investing in high net worth alternative options, they want somebody different too.
00:19:20
Speaker
It's not the same as, oh, I want to go out to the golf course with my buddy's son's firm. Right. It's like, I've done that. I have investment there. What else can I do? And that's what I'm seeing a lot of is just seeing a shift of people being like, you know what? I don't.
00:19:37
Speaker
like what I'm doing and there's gotta be something else out there. And social media definitely helps with that. I'm a big fan of like the information access now. I think that that's the biggest shift from like if we look back 10 or 15 years and the amount of access you had to information to today when you have like in real time information from people is like really exciting. And I think that that's kind of what's lighting a fire under women's
00:20:05
Speaker
I've got to start learning about financial literacy, I have to start figuring out where my money is. I mean there's the big headline that talking about the $30 trillion shifting over the next 10 years the greatest wealth transfer in the world.
00:20:21
Speaker
And that's all, I mean, the majority of that is going to women. When you go to a financial advisor and it's a husband and wife, the husband passes away because typically we outlive our male partners six to 10 years. It's a ridiculous amount of time. They go to their advisor and they're like, oh, well, John had you set up and we have John, like John had your best interest in mind. It's like, well, John's not here anymore.
00:20:45
Speaker
So what are my interests and what are my goals and what do I need in retirement for the next 10 years? And that conversation is starting to be had after the person passes away instead of the entire time they were alive. And I think Ellevest is an investment platform created by women for women.
00:21:07
Speaker
So if you're a woman out there and you don't have an advisor, you don't like your advisor, like check Ellevest out. You can start at a basic level where you are kind of on your own and then you can move up into an advisor or a private wealth team. But what
Navigating Alternative Investments
00:21:20
Speaker
they're focused on is when people's partners pass away, I think it's almost 85% of women within the first six months will leave the financial advisor and sit in cash.
00:21:31
Speaker
That's women's biggest problem is that they're constantly just sitting on money and they could be really powerful if they started investing it well. And they don't because majority just don't know what to do with it. Right. You know, so where do you feel?
00:21:51
Speaker
you know, what are your suggestions then for women out there listening that are, cause I do have a lot of listeners that the finance industry in general is foreign to them. I only made a move over into the industry a couple of years ago myself. So I know that there are a lot of listeners that they, they're just learning along, you know, as they're listening. So what kind of advice and recommendations do you have for women out there that are just starting to learn and maybe feel overwhelmed by all the information out there?
00:22:21
Speaker
There are a lot of resources out there. It depends on where you are in your financial literacy journey, right? So I wrote a book and that book is mainly for people who are, you know, they understand budgeting, they understand saving, like what is next, right? There's financial literacy and then there's like the next step. You have a job, you have these things set up, like what is the next step? I think that for your listeners, it's really about finding
00:22:50
Speaker
someone that you trust, whether that's a financial advisor or I'm a really big fan of just getting a really good CPA, like get a really good tax person because that person's one going to be the most boring person in your life. And also probably one of the most honest CPAs have a code of ethics that's just really
00:23:13
Speaker
important to them, and so when you get advice from a CPA or a tax person, it's going to be real. It might be disappointing and boring, but it is definitely like gives you a reality check of where you are financially, and then you can take that information to somebody more creative like a financial advisor, an investment advisor, etc.
00:23:35
Speaker
I'm on the wild side, right? You have a piece of your portfolio that you want to invest in alternatives. We don't know what to do, but you want to have some risk and you want to invest in something different. That's where we belong, but we are not 100% of a portfolio. We're like 10% to 25% should be in alternatives.
00:23:55
Speaker
And that should be spread across a bunch of different assets. So just keep that in mind as far as what is your net worth and how much risk can you take? If you're younger, you can take more risk because you have more opportunity to make more money. But if you're older, you want to take less risk because you don't have the same opportunities to make more money in your lifetime before it's too late. There's a couple of different things. And I'll send you the links to it if you want to give them to your audience.
00:24:21
Speaker
One of the companies that we just recently made an investment in is a company called Nomi. It's K-N-O-M-E-E dot com and it creates your financial portfolio. So like, or your profile. So who are you as a woman, as an investor?
00:24:40
Speaker
And you can take that information, it shows you a lot about yourself. And you can take that information to a financial advisor. I'm super biased and I think you should go to LFS if you're a woman, just because there's women there who understands what it's like to be a woman investor and the different things that you have to overcome.
00:24:57
Speaker
being a woman and making money. You work less, you make less money, you have to work longer, like into your, uh, into retirement, you have to take time off if you're starting a family. Like there's a lot of nuances to being a woman and how you should manage your money over time. And so they're really good at that because they've just collected years and years of data behind that.
Challenging Norms in Finance
00:25:17
Speaker
to create the investment algorithms behind their portfolio structures. So really cool tools there. That's a starting place. I'm not an advisor. I'm super biased to the things that I invest in. But if you want to have really creative conversations about the things that I'm doing, let's go for it. But it's definitely something we partner with people's advisors, whether they're a tax advisor or a financial advisor.
00:25:46
Speaker
So I want to talk more about your blog, which is your inspiration for writing this book. So if you're familiar with the movie Boiler Room from like the 2000s, it's based around like a brand new broker on the stock market. And he comes in and he's being trained by an old guy in the market. And so one of the first scenes is
00:26:12
Speaker
Rule number one, you don't pitch the bitch. If you get a woman on the phone, you just hang up, because they'll call you if the stock's up, they'll call you if the stock's down, they're a pain in the ass, right? And so the phrase is don't pitch the bitch. And this has been said to me in real life.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah. This has been said to me in real life, like in training sessions and how they're like working with people, like selling investment opportunities, right? In the broker dealer space and in general in the private equity world is like, yeah, you just don't, don't deal with the wife. Don't pitch the bitch, right? This is like a phrase that's like very well.
00:26:42
Speaker
And so I'd never understood that because I would spend all this time working with the husband on through an investment and come out of it with, I don't know where the checkbook is. I don't know what bank account we should use, like, et cetera. Right. And so then they have to pull their wife on the phone and the wife's like, who are you? What have you been talking to my husband about for, you know, three weeks and like, who's this person on the phone? And like, no, we're not making this investment like go away.
00:27:09
Speaker
And the reality is is that if you just included them from the beginning, they would have had time to hear all the information, ask questions and feel comfortable about saying yes or no. And so throughout my career, I made it a point to like talk to women and talk to minorities and talk to people who may or may not have an accent, you know. And the reality is is that it's
00:27:36
Speaker
dark on the backside of the finance space. And so it is an extremely racist, prejudice, terrible sexist place. And so when you're raising capital and you're having people in the background being like, I don't want to talk to foreigners. I don't want to talk to women. They have a black sounding name. Like these are really aggressive things that are being said in sales rooms for people who are supposed to be helping people access investment opportunities.
00:28:01
Speaker
So that's what I experienced early on in my career. It's gotten better because there, a lot of the large firms anyways are doing a lot of DEI work, but in the private boiler rooms that are around the country, like it's the same thing. So when I decided to write the book, you know, pitch the bitch made the most sense because it was like, you know what? You should be pitching the woman. Like you absolutely, you should be pitching them a hitch. Who cares if she's that way because she has every right to be upset.
00:28:31
Speaker
um so you know i i had some feedback from a couple of my colleagues and stuff like you know it's a really aggressive name and i was like it should be aggressive yes it's very when you get into the book i i do not sugarcoat anything it is here's the information here's how you
00:28:50
Speaker
take action with it. It's not necessarily, here are the things you need to be investing in. It's more like, think about your retirement this way. Are you set up correctly in a bank account? Are you at a place where you should be in a private wealth account or not? Does an online bank make more sense for you if you're younger and you're not needing to go into a bank or have hands-on help with a banker?
00:29:15
Speaker
you know, and also educating people about, hey, there's other people out there doing big things outside of Warren Buffett.
00:29:22
Speaker
So, you know, like care about what other people are doing also. And so it's just a very raw book of like, hey, it's okay that you don't know this information. It's been on purpose. Here's how it's been gate kept over time in different ways, how to recognize when somebody is like gaslighting you into this stuff and, you know, go forth and be wealthy is the point of the book.
Encouragement and Empowerment in Finance
00:29:50
Speaker
That's amazing. I can't wait to read it. I mean, yes, please. I definitely want to read it. I mean, I think that, um, you know, for women, obviously as a society, we've had to traditionally be the nice girl and be polite and the lady and blah, blah, blah. And so I think the only way to really make serious change is like you said, just go head on and, um, you know, and
00:30:15
Speaker
and have that bravery, that courage to speak true, then it's the only way we're going to see change in evolution in the industry. So yes. It's not necessarily like.
00:30:28
Speaker
act like a man, but it is definitely have the same confidence. Yeah, just as what I like to call a mediocre white man, who can go into a conversation and just ask blatantly for something they absolutely do not deserve and get it anyways. So women, we tried to overcompensate. So we won't ask for something unless we feel like we are overqualified for it.
00:30:58
Speaker
There's no way we could get a no because we should be asking for more, but I'm only going to ask for this because I know that I could get more, but this is where I'm going to come in at my threshold. And the reality is that you should just go in absolutely ridiculous because you are 100% overqualified for the ask and see what happens. And I think that if you can go in with that confidence, that it's going to be accepted by the right people.
00:31:24
Speaker
There are people who are going to dig their heels in and be like, well, she's bossy, right? Or whatever other word they want to use. But there is a shift in leadership where it is wanted and needed that there is leadership that looks like us.
00:31:43
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. And how do you see, you know, you talk a lot about you talk a lot about, you know, innovation and bringing more diversity in and that's such a key component for your work. What ways to me.
00:31:56
Speaker
you know, create a more diverse environment in those boiler rooms, in those rooms that, you know, you're talking about, how can we make those changes in that? So an interesting fact is that like women go into financial professions at the same rate as men, but they do. But about, I think their average time in is about five or six years and about half of them drop out.
00:32:21
Speaker
And that's because they're getting stuck in relationship roles instead of getting promoted into management roles. So when you go into a financial firm, and I'm talking from just like the advisory space, they're going in as like an analyst or like a customer person or a client at relations, and they get stuck there as like an assistant.
00:32:48
Speaker
And they're not elevated or given the same opportunities when a male is going in and immediately being, you know, VP of whatever, which in the finance world means nothing, but VP of whatever. And so they're stuck in that kind of grind. And so then they want to start families and they doesn't make any sense for them because they're working so much for no opportunity. So then they drop out.
Addressing Gender Bias and Industry Change
00:33:12
Speaker
Um, I think that there are spaces that are being created now that make, that have a support system for women who want to go into financial professions. Um, so about finding your community, finding your tribe, is it going to be a lot easier now because they're just, they're popping up everywhere, which is amazing to see. Uh, but there is definitely space for women, um, and minorities to find community here. Mm-hmm.
00:33:41
Speaker
I have to just share this myself, just this morning as I was getting ready, I had a terrible troll come on my page and I'm sure you've dealt with those yourself, you know, and just said some pretty terrible things, you know, about obviously the way that I look and that, oh, there's no way I can actually be working in finance. You know, and
00:34:04
Speaker
what do you have to say to people like that that like to be critical of women like us in the industry?
00:34:15
Speaker
Um, well that person probably doesn't have any money, so it's not like you can help them anyways. So, I mean, it's, it's really just like, don't waste your time because the people that are going to be saying these things can't work with you anyway. Um, and, and they can find
00:34:37
Speaker
someone else who will listen to that, I guess. I get a lot of like the victim mentality, right? Whenever you're talking about women receive less than 2% of venture capital funding, you know, women can't get their startups found it, like all these types of things. It's like, it's not a victim mentality. It's just fact. That's right. That's how that is happening. The reason why that is happening is not because
00:35:02
Speaker
the, she's a woman and it's happening because there's a bias because she's a woman, you know, like it's, it's a different narrative and those people will just never understand. And it's literally just a waste of time to try to explain it to them. 100%. No, I don't engage with people like that, but I do find it entertaining that here we are approaching
00:35:26
Speaker
2024 and there's still this mentality that women are not capable of being multidimensional. It just really blows my mind that we are still having these conversations
00:35:39
Speaker
And, you know, and, you know, but it's going to just take more women like yourself speaking up and showing up in those rooms and making space for other women and that support system for other women to also, you know, come in. Yeah. I think it's, I mean, it's, it's a conversation to be had with men because realistically it's part of the conversation.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, you can't, you're telling, you can't sit there and have a conversation with me because you're distracted by the way that I look. Yeah. But that's a you problem. And you should be aware of that. Like if you can look here, then we can have a conversation about money that is money and is important to you. I don't care about your money, right? Like I'm trying to care about your money, but you are not caring about
00:36:26
Speaker
here. So that's something that they have to hold themselves accountable for. And I'm fortunate enough to have the privilege to be able to be open and crass about it. But I do understand that most of the world, that's a dangerous situation to be in.
00:36:46
Speaker
And one of the things that is super interesting actually is you have an entire industry of like only fans, women, okay, who make millions of dollars a year, millions. They do not have any financial representation because they are not comfortable in the room with the people that are managing money.
Cultural Shifts in Finance
00:37:09
Speaker
I can't go in there and be like, Hey, I made $10 million this year. What should I do? Because the guy's like, Oh, well, how did you make $10 million? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Um, how do I invest my money so that I don't like, if I don't want to do that anymore, I don't have to, or I can continue doing this, but I can do also do this. Um, there is a company out of Northern California that's called stripper financial.
00:37:34
Speaker
I was about to mention her. I listened to Lindsay's talk at Joel's. She's cool. I met her at the American college of financial services, women who work in wealth conference. And I just thought that was so interesting. And I was like, see, there are people out there. There's not very many, but the truth is, is that if you want to engage with
00:38:00
Speaker
other people, like you have to get over yourself. So if men want to have better practices, they have to look internally and they gotta get over that male ego. Yeah.
00:38:11
Speaker
Uh, we're all in this together and no, it's, uh, it's a, it's a thing I'm trying to be as vocal as I can. Um, because I do know that it's not safe for a lot of people to do that. And, um, I don't really care if they don't like me. So there's a lot of people do and they write me big checks. And that's what matters most. Exactly. So, um, you know, I like to say, you know,
00:38:36
Speaker
Uh, you know, you don't, you don't necessarily have haters cause you know, you, you either, you either love me or you love to hate me either way. And I'm going to be locked in bank, baby. So yes, exactly.
00:38:50
Speaker
Exactly. So gosh, I can't wait to read your book, but that is funny about Lindsay. Um, super financial. I, I find her very fascinating and I do think there's just going to have to be more women, you know, that are, are just going to just go for it and not care what people think about them. And, um, you know, and that's how we're going to really see the change. Yeah. I think Barbie, the Barbie movie is helping.
00:39:14
Speaker
Oh my gosh, the Barbie movie. Have you seen it? Yes. I actually love it. It is so funny. I think it can be as deep as you want it to be, which is the coolest part of it. Because it can be, for people who don't want to think about it that much, it's just an entertaining film. And the women who are walking away being like, I have to change my entire life. The movie is exactly what it needs to be.
00:39:42
Speaker
There's a tremendous amount of women that are leaving abusive relationships because of that movie. It's amazing. I mean, it's, yeah.
00:39:53
Speaker
It makes me a little emotional thinking about that. Like that is, it's just, it's, it's amazing. The movie was incredible. I actually went back to Indiana. I'm from Indiana. I saw my grandmother while I was there. She just turned 90. And so we went and saw it together and dressed. It was amazing. And she loved it. She loved it. So, uh, but that movie, I think, you know, I'm really glad that you mentioned it because I think that they did it so brilliantly.
00:40:23
Speaker
brilliantly on every end of the whole film, you know, from the writing from, from, you know, I mean, the script, the plot line itself, the production, the marketing, everything. I mean, it was just absolutely brilliant. And the fact that they really leaned into all of these stereotypes and didn't shy away from all the criticism that, you know, and the controversy that Barbie has had for so long.
00:40:48
Speaker
I think that was the right way to do it. So you've got to embrace those things. One of the interesting parts was the way that Mattel allowed them to portray Mattel.
00:41:07
Speaker
which was really cool. They let that happen. And, you know, that's a self-reflection thing. Like we're this massive conglomerate that has this opinion, like we should be predict, like project, like shown that way. And I thought that was really cool. My sister's feedback was that she loved the movie except for at the end, Barbie was still like having to,
00:41:35
Speaker
say sorry to Ken and Ken never apologized for like ruining Barbie land. Oh, was just like, it's okay that you're sad now. It's like, but wait a minute. There's no accountability. I think that my sister was, she was like, yeah, Ken had no accountability for any of anything.
Emerging Trends and Final Thoughts
00:41:55
Speaker
I was like, I think that's kind of the point though, right?
00:41:58
Speaker
He's got to go and discover who he is, you know, now and make his own way because he is his own person and not identified by Barbie. So I thought it was really cool how they, how they just flipped that out of the script. Yeah. It was really well done. It's one of those movies I'm going to be rewatching and watching again and again. Yes. Like Mean Girls, Mean Girls. It's an instant classic, instant classic.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yes. So a few more questions. How does AWP provide access to digestible information about your investments?
00:42:37
Speaker
So we provide like I'm very open about the different things that we're invested in. I'm very active on LinkedIn. So just like my goal is to have people think about assets in a new and creative way, like outside of the box so that they're not just looking at them in a traditional sense of like.
00:42:58
Speaker
Okay, I'm going to buy this mutual fund, and it's going to sit in my retirement account, and then it'll compound over time. And then when I retire, I'll have $1.5 million, and my $1.5 million will carry me through my death. And the reality is that's not true. And there's all these global political things going on that affect each type of asset class, whether you're in the public space or the private space.
00:43:24
Speaker
It seems really overwhelming, but I think our goal is really just to say, it's okay to take your time and go at your own pace digesting this information, but here it is. And like, here's the resources to dig deeper. And then obviously I'm super accessible. I try to be as accessible as possible to one, our clients, but also people who just want to have a conversation about it.
00:43:48
Speaker
I'm on TikTok and stuff. So I've had a couple of conversations with people that have scheduled calls with me from TikTok, which have been really interesting. One woman was up from the Northeast and she said she had been emailing private equity companies for like a year, trying to figure out like, what's the process of selling a company? Cause she owned a children's publishing company. And she was like, I just wanted to know what the process is. And I was like, well, here's our process if we were interested in buying a company. And she was like,
00:44:15
Speaker
Why didn't anyone give you this information? I was like, I don't know why they can't send an email. It takes two seconds. And it doesn't matter whether you're managing a couple of million dollars or a jillion dollars. There's someone on your team who can answer a question to somebody. And so I think that that's our biggest thing is just remaining accessible to people who have questions.
00:44:40
Speaker
And then obviously, our funds are structured so that they have access to a bunch of different things. Diversification is at the base of our strategy. So our diversified fund is invested from oil and gas to venture. Our energy fund is invested in small owner operator wells to publicly traded Exxon Mobil operated wells and in different parts of the state and country. So they get a lot of diversification inside of the funds without having to put $100,000 into each
00:45:10
Speaker
individual portfolio company or asset. So that's how we give access. We try to make it understandable because we spend a lot of time talking to our investors about what we're doing. That's good. We're building those relationships with them and, you know, it's all about trust and... Yeah. So, well, what about other emerging trends in industry? What would you say that you see as far as
00:45:39
Speaker
Good things to keep an eye, good funds to keep an eye on as far as to diversify your portfolio. What's emerging funds?
00:45:47
Speaker
Well, personally, I'm like a big, like pro America, small business supports our economy. We should be focusing on, you know, domestic growth and you know, that's kind of my whole MO. So for me, you know, my investment focus really is in the manufacturing space, the infrastructure space and energy. So anything that is
00:46:12
Speaker
in that space is really interesting for me. I think that we're going to see a huge shift in bringing things back to the United States. We have the power to be completely independent as far as our energy sources go. And that's including the renewable space too. I'm five generations in oil and gas, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to see a transition.
00:46:41
Speaker
Absolutely a requirement. However, we have to still invest in the infrastructure that exists today in order to fund the infrastructure of tomorrow. And it's going to be very expensive. And the only way you can do that is if you have cheap oil, like that is the only reason why we can
00:47:00
Speaker
power build anything. So when oil's at 80, $85 a barrel, it's very expensive to try to build new infrastructure. When oil's at 30, 40, oil companies are still making money at that amount of money. They can then
00:47:16
Speaker
fund the transition into things like natural gas, wind and solar. But we can't do that unless we invest in today's infrastructure, which is not going well. It needs to be replaced. It's a bajillion years old. If you watch people like Warren Buffett and what they're doing in the background, he bought
00:47:35
Speaker
the largest natural gas pipeline last year. So he's extremely invested in natural gas. I do like, I do have bragging rights that when oil went negative 40 in April of 2020, I bought a bunch of Occidental stock. And he bought it a year and a half later. So I'm up 360%. Thanks, Warren Buffett. Love it. Who are your other favorites in the industry that you
00:48:03
Speaker
that you follow? I mean, I'm definitely a fan girl of Sally Krawcheck, who's the founder of Ellevest. She's a Citibank, Merrill Lynch private well. She is the epitome of private wealth on Wall Street. And if no one knows about her, which is so ridiculous, but she is a true force of nature when it comes to pioneering for women and access to money. So she's definitely one of my favorites.
00:48:33
Speaker
Well, we are running low on time. I have one more question for you. And if you'd like to add anything, of course, please do. But how would you measure your success as your role as the founder of your company?
00:48:51
Speaker
Um, I think it was definitely a milestone to see our LP makeup switch this year from a majority of white older men to a more diverse LP makeup. And so that was really successful for me because the whole reason why I built this company was to create access to an entire group of people that never had access to these assets.
00:49:15
Speaker
And I think that we're on track. So I really impact focus. The profits are great, but I truly believe that if you're doing what's right for the world that the profits will come too, and you don't have to forfeit one for the other. So that's what I view. I want to continue building things that make society better and profiting from it.
00:49:42
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Kelly. That is very meaningful. And you've just been such a joy to have on here. It's been so great to chat with you. Thank you so much for all that you do and supporting, you know, my more diversity, more women in the industry, and thank you for being a pioneer yourself. So it's been great to have you on. Thank you, Brittany. And thanks for having the platform that gives people voice.
00:50:05
Speaker
More, thank you. More, more women, more diversity. Let's go. And be sure to get your copy of Kelly's book, Bitch the Bitch, and follow her and boundary and capital on social media. We're all on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter X, whatever we're calling it these days, all of those things. And we will see you next time right here in the green couch. Thank you so much. And have a great day, everyone. Bye.
00:50:36
Speaker
The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results.
00:51:00
Speaker
Any indices referenced for comparative are unmanaged and cannot be invested into the directory. As always, please remember, investment involves risk and possible loss of capital. Please seek advice from a licensed professional.