NYC Speaker Q&A:Kelly Ann Winget
NY Summit Q&A Session: Kelly Ann Winget (The Portfolio You Haven’t Built Yet: Private Credit, Private Equity, Gold & Crypto)
Kelly Ann Winget is a private equity fund manager, alternative investments expert and author who is redefining how modern investors build wealth outside the stock market. She is the Founder and CEO of Alternative Wealth Partners, a Dallas based private equity and wealth strategy firm that creates diversified portfolios of alternative assets for entrepreneurs, founders and next generation wealth builders. What began as her own family office has evolved into a multi fund platform serving more than 150 clients across private equity, energy, defense, real estate, manufacturing and tax advantaged strategies, giving investors access to the same playbook dynastic families have used for generations.
Kelly comes from a fifth generation oil and gas family and grew up in North Dallas surrounded by conversations about money, assets and deal making. She started her first business at fifteen and spent her teens and twenties in sales, healthcare, construction and consulting roles in male dominated industries, experiences that shaped her operator mindset and comfort with complex, real world businesses. By her mid twenties she had launched multiple marketing and capital raising ventures and had already helped raise more than two hundred million dollars in private capital from individual investors.
Before founding Alternative Wealth Partners in 2020, Kelly spent more than a decade sourcing creative capital for startups, oil and gas deals, manufacturing ventures, real estate projects and other emerging markets on behalf of high net worth clients. Over the course of her career she has raised close to one billion dollars in private capital, often one hundred thousand dollars at a time, and has structured deals in areas such as Opportunity Zone Funds where tax strategy, social impact and cash flow intersect. Frustrated by how exclusive and opaque traditional private equity felt to most investors, she created AWP to open institutional grade opportunities to people who historically have been kept on the sidelines.
Alternative Wealth Partners is widely recognized as the first private equity firm founded and led by a millennial, openly LGBTQ+ woman. Kelly’s approach centers on blended portfolios of alternatives that are designed to generate durable income, hedge inflation and capture long term value in the “real economy” rather than relying solely on public markets. AWP’s current focus includes domestic manufacturing, defense, infrastructure, energy and other mission critical sectors where the firm can partner with experienced operators and lean into long term fundamentals. Under her leadership, the firm is now executing a nine figure fundraise and expanding into full service wealth management, adding tax planning, estate strategy and family office infrastructure to support clients who have outgrown traditional wealth platforms.
Beyond AWP, Kelly is also co founder and managing partner of Alpha 2023 Acquisition Corp, a vehicle focused on acquiring manufacturing and retail consumable businesses in the United States. She serves as an advisor to the executive boards of 360 Venture Collective, Stella Foundation and Fierce Foundry, where she helps advance capital access and ecosystem building for women and diverse founders. Her work has been featured in media outlets including Worth, Forbes, Kiplinger, Crain Currency, Novogradac and Business Insider, and she has been recognized as one of the 100 Women to KNOW in America, a two time D CEO 500 honoree and a recipient of the Dallas Business Journal Leadership in Diversity Award.
Kelly is the author of “Pitch the Bitch: Grab Your Financial Future by the Bags,” a book that blends her personal story with a clear, irreverent guide to closing the investing wealth gap and building generational assets on your own terms. She is also the host of “The Wealth Alpha” podcast and is featured in the documentary “Show Her the Money,” which examines the barriers women face in accessing capital and investment opportunities and profiles investors who are changing that narrative. A nationally recognized speaker, she is a regular keynote and panelist at events like Alts Expo, Women Working in Wealth and WE Global Studios summits, where she talks candidly about private markets, due diligence, risk, tax strategy and what it really takes to become a “millennial millionaire” outside of tech unicorns.
Across all of her work, Kelly’s mission is to demystify alternative investments and make the tools of generational wealth building accessible to more people. Whether she is structuring a fund, educating investors from the stage or speaking directly to women and diverse communities who have been ignored by legacy finance, she is committed to proving that private equity and complex strategies do not have to be reserved for the few.