PEF+ Women: What Is the Exit Gap - and How Do WE Close It? with Carrie Kerpen
Join PEF+ Women for an intimate virtual conversation with Carrie Kerpen, founder and CEO of The Whisper Group and one of the most respected voices on women, wealth, and business exits. Carrie will be sharing candid insights on The Exit Gap, the stark disparity between what women build and what they ultimately take home when they sell, and what founders, investors, and leaders can do together to change it. As exited female founders, we are the ones who can make this happen, and in this interactive conversation, we will examine how.
Drawing from her own exit experience and her work advising hundreds of women founders, Carrie will examine the data behind the Exit Gap, explore why it exists, and outline tangible ways women can help close it, not just for themselves, but for the next generation of founders.
What We’ll Explore
Carrie will draw on her experience selling her own company and working alongside women across industries and stages of growth. Topics will include:
What the Exit Gap Actually Is, the data behind the disparity in exit outcomes between male- and female-led companies
Why the Gap Persists, structural, financial, and mindset barriers that continue to affect women founders at scale
The Responsibility After Exit, how women who have liquidity can help reshape outcomes for others
Investing in Women, increasing access to capital and ownership opportunities across the ecosystem
Advising and Sponsorship, supporting founders earlier so they build businesses with exit potential
Reframing Lifestyle Businesses, recognizing them as potential life-changing assets, not just sources of income
Encouraging Different Financial Thinking, helping more women prepare for wealth creation before and after exit
Financial Wealth Management, making intentional decisions about how capital is deployed post-transaction
There will be plenty of time for live Q&A, bring your questions whether you’re building toward an exit, supporting other founders, or thinking about the role you want to play in closing the Exit Gap.
About Carrie Kerpen
Carrie Kerpen is the founder and CEO of The Whisper Group, the #1 exit readiness advisory practice for women-owned businesses. Before launching The Whisper Group, Carrie co-founded and scaled Likeable Media, a women-led digital agency named the 6th Best Place to Work in New York City, which she successfully sold to technology firm 10Pearls in 2021.
After her own exit, Carrie researched what she calls The Exit Gap, the stark disparity in exit values between female- and male-led companies, and went on to build The Whisper Collective, the world’s largest community dedicated exclusively to exited female founders. She is the author of Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business and The Whisper Way: The Secret Formula for Women Entrepreneurs to Scale and Sell for Life-Changing Money (Simon & Schuster, 2025), and she hosts The Exit Whisperer podcast. Carrie is a certified exit planning advisor (CEPA) and lives in Port Washington, NY.
About The Whisper Group
The Whisper Group is the leading exit readiness firm built specifically for women, helping female founders prepare their businesses for sale, close the exit gap, and walk away with outcomes that reflect what they’ve actually built.