June is Pride month and all month long.
We are shining a light on LGBT Q trailblazers who
are making an impact and strides in their industries.
And today we hear from Kelly Anne Wing,
the pioneering founder of private equity firm,
alternative wealth partners and one of the only
millennial and LGBT Q managers in the industry.
She's the author of Pitch The Bitch, a
financial guide for women and others often left
out of the male dominated investment world.
She spoke to chatter News Baker Machado about her experience on Wall Street.
Take a listen,
you have this very traditional um kind of industry.
So a lot of us aren't out or openly out in our um organizations.
The big part of what I've done is when I was working for other people,
I never really talked about my personal life.
You know, I had to navigate the conversations of uh oh, you should meet my son or,
you know, where is your husband?
And
you'll love my daughter.
Yeah, exactly.
And it wasn't until, you know,
the last few years that I actually felt comfortable saying, you know, like I don't,
I'm not interested
and this is why.
Um And it took kind of stepping out behind,
from behind somebody else's shadow into my own space and saying, like,
I'm actually just gonna create my own lane
and I'm gonna be authentically myself here.
And if people don't want to participate with me because of that, that's,
they'll lose,
you know, because I'm over here making money.
Let's, well, let's talk about queer money in particular.
A lot of people know that the LGBT community has um a lot of spending power,
but there's a term called pink Money. I've never actually heard that before.
What is that?
And how does that sort of applicable to the LGBT community when it comes to money?
The queer community has about 1.5.
It could be more because I think the last numbers were run two or three years ago,
but
that's a significant amount of money
and there's no one who's catering to that
outside of June, right?
So,
um they, they change their logos and they try to participate with us um during
Pride Month.
And the reality is that we still have that $1.5 trillion the rest of the year.
So, you know, how do you, how do you engage with that community to spend it?
Because, you know, we have tremendous power with that.
And I think that,
you know, with that access of information and community,
you have things like tiktok and Facebook and
you know, the other ways that we communicate with each other in, in our community.
Um You know,
we can really rally together to make change that help us rather
than hinder us how and how do we sort of hold,
especially in this time right now where you
have situations with Bud Light and Target and
all these other companies as well to sort
of like keep these corporations and even money
involved in the LGBT community besides just you.
Um
will you stop spending money there until they represent you? Um
And you'll see that with,
uh with Florida where people will just leave and which is
unfortunate because there's parts of Florida that are really gay,
friendly
and they're gonna see
that's gonna hit them the worst, which is unfortunate, but
you know, that money is powerful eventually
they'll have to make the changes because we'll just stop spending money.
Let's talk about your book. Pitch. The Bitch Grab your Financial Future by the bag.
What sort of financial strategies do you advise your clients
that you also sort of talk about in this book?
The book really is just
telling people that it's OK that you
don't know this information about building wealth.
Here's the information,
here's how you start making these decisions for
yourself or having these conversations with your partner.
Um And here's people that you should just
know about who aren't your, you know, Warren Buffetts like we,
there are other people
you can know about that are doing exciting things in finance
that can help you make better decisions regarding your money.
We like to highlight trailblazers in this series. You are a trail blazer as well.
What does that moniker sort of mean to you?
And you know, does this achievement mean something to you, you know,
with what you're doing being not just
a female but an LGBT person in the financial world.
Uh I really think representation is powerful and meaningful and important
and I
come from five generations of oil and gas.
So the people who have held on to wealth forever,
um just need to be shook up a little bit
and I get to partner with your traditional
money managers because I look like their granddaughter
and give access to people that I know would do more
and better things with money if they had access to it.
So I get to help marginalized communities
get access to generational wealth building assets that have been
gate kept from them from the beginning of time.
What does Pride Month mean to, to you?
What when you look at the month of June and everything that happens,
what does it mean to you?
Um
It's an opportunity for us to like showcase ourselves.
Uh even if part of it feels a little unauthentic from
corporations that have ignored us for most of the year.
But it is our opportunity to like,
take that attention
and take it as far as you can.
So I'm, I'm excited that, you know,
someone's at least paying attention for a little bit so we can say, hey,
we're doing these really cool things over here so
that it matters the rest of the year.
Great interview, especially for our viewers.
Our thanks to Chatter News is Baker Machado with Kelly Anne Wing
uh for that great piece.