Wealth Catalyst Summit
New York • May 14, 2026
A private gathering for women building, preserving, and deploying wealth creatively.
The Wealth Catalyst Summit convenes women who have built wealth, or are building it, and want a more candid, strategic conversation about what comes next.
Corporate executives and board directors. Founders and business owners.
Real estate operators and capital allocators. Philanthropists and inheritors.
Family wealth stewards and cultural architects. Women stepping into financial leadership for the first time.
Different paths. One shared conviction: capital in the hands of women changes everything.
This is a peer-led room. Everybody was a peer. Anybody in that room could have been on stage. -Marcia Dawood
NYC · May 14
Why We Gather
We are living through what we call the Great Wealth Enlightenment™: inherited wealth and earned wealth converging in women’s hands.
By 2030 nearly 40% of U.S. investable assets, $34T, will be controlled by women. While 94% of women full expect to be in control of their finances at some point in their life, only 28% feel confident in managing their capital.
Many successful women still describe feeling:
- Alone in financial decision-making
- Intimidated in traditional investment rooms
- Unsure about risk
- Without a peer group where money can be discussed candidly
We gather to change that, not by simplifying money, but by strengthening how women think about it together.
Bank of America 2022 Study
What Happens in the Room
The conversation is candid and non-transactional. Women compare notes on what they’re doing, what they’re considering, and what they’ve learned the hard way across private markets, real estate, philanthropy, public equities, and the creative edges of ownership
- How to preserve wealth without stagnation
- How to take intelligent, aligned risk
- How to build conviction
- How to think creatively about ownership and influence
Who This Is For
If you’ve built wealth, or you’re stepping into real responsibility for it and want a more candid conversation than most rooms allow, this room was designed with you in mind.
For those who want signal over noise and a room where the conversation can go further.
LEAD SPONSOR
MEDIA SPONSORS
Everybody was a peer. Anybody in that room could have been on stage.
MARCIA DAWOOD
Venture Investor & Author
I thought I had a solid handle on my financial path. The Summit revealed blind spots I hadn’t considered.
VICKY BOUDREAU
Founder & CEO
As an immigrant and first-time business owner, having a space to rewrite my money story has been a game-changer.
SACHI SINGH
Founder & CEO
It was generous, tactical, powerful, and rare.
MOLLY MCDERMOTT WALSH
Corporate Executive
AS FEATURED IN
The Invitation
Many women don’t talk about money because they lack the confidence, the language, or the permission.
This is a room designed to change that without posturing and without anyone trying to sell you something.
If you’re ready for a more candid, strategic dialogue about how to grow, protect, and deploy your wealth, we invite you to join us.
HEATHER UDO
Founder and CEO
SHENA PATEL
Creative Executive & Brand Strategist
Capital, Influence, and Long‑Term Vision
The New York Summit convenes women thinking seriously about how capital shapes outcomes over time.
Conversations in this room are strategic, grounded, and forward‑looking, focused on responsibility, clarity, and the long arc of wealth.
Join peers who are building, preserving, and deploying wealth creatively.
Featured Speakers Include
PATRICE BRICKMAN
Mobilizing $326B in Idle DAF Capital
Founder & CEO, Inspire Access
Fuel the Future: Investing in Private Companies Through Your IRA & DAF
LIBBY CLARK
Frmr General Counsel, Strategic Advisor
Founder, LiKeWell & Autonomy Framework
The Questions You Should Be Asking, But Aren’t
M.CLAIRE CHUNG
Frmr GM, Yoox Net-a-Porter Group
Founder & Public Company Board Director
The Advantage Nobody Talks About: Building a Business After 40
MARCIA DAWOOD
Chair, SEC Small Business Capital Formation
Venture Partner, Mindshift Capital
Fuel the Future: Investing in Private Companies Through Your IRA & DAF
WENDY DIAMOND
Impact Investor, CEO LDP Ventures
Founder, WEDO
Stop Writing Checks. Start Building a Giving Portfolio
JESSYCA DUDLEY
Directed $50M in Philanthropic Capital
Founder & CEO, Bold Ventures
Stop Writing Checks. Start Building a Giving Portfolio
CINDY GALLOP
Frmr Head of BBH New York, Oxford
Founder & CEO, MakeLoveNotPorn
The Advantage Nobody Talks About: Building a Business After 40
ANDRESA GUIDELLI
Co-Founder, Real Estate InvestHer
Bestselling Author & Podcast Host
Real Estate Without the Landlord: How to Invest Through REITs, Funds & Private Syndications
FRAN HAUSER
Frmr President, Time Inc. Digital
Serial Founder, Author & Investor
The Advantage Nobody Talks About: Building a Business After 40
ROBERTA HURDY VALENTINE
Founder, nvstIRA, Self-Directed IRA Advocate
Frmr Director, Equity Trust Company
Fuel the Future: Investing in Private Companies Through Your IRA & DAF
LISA KALFUS
Connection Alchemist, Relationship Coach
Founder, Firestart Connections
SHAZ KAHNG
Frmr Nike Global GM, GoPro Board Chair
Award-Winning Author, The Ceiling Smasher Series
Board Seats as a Wealth Strategy: Influence, Income & Optionality
HEATHER KERNAHAN
Frmr CEO, Hotwire Global
Acquired & Runs Content Bureau
Already Built: The Case for Buying a Business
CARRIE KERPEN
Sold Likeable Media for 8 Figures
Founder, The Whisper Group & Author, The Whisper Way
Already Built: The Case for Buying a Business
REEMA KHAN
SETI Endowment Chair, UN Ambassador
Founder & CEO, Green Sands Equity
The Alpha Nobody Is Talking About: Women’s Sports, Health & Deep Tech
ELISE KING
Managing Director, American Heart Association Ventures
Investor, Women’s Health Series A & B
The Alpha Nobody Is Talking About: Women’s Sports, Health & Deep Tech
ALVINA LO
Head of Planning & Fiduciary, BNY Wealth
Frmr Trust & Estates Attorney, 20+ Years Private Wealth
The Questions You Should Be Asking, But Aren’t
SHELLY LOMBARD
Fortune 500 Board Director, Audit Chair
Frmr Wall Street Analyst & Founder, Schmooze
Board Seats as a Wealth Strategy: Influence, Income & Optionality
ANGE MATTHEWS
LP Investor, REITs, Hotels & Private Real Estate
Founder, Happy Investor Method
Real Estate Without the Landlord: How to Invest Through REITs, Funds & Private Syndications
KELLY O’BRIEN
Frmr VP, Real Estate Investment Banking, Citi
Real Estate Without the Landlord: How to Invest Through REITs, Funds & Private Syndications
LORINE PENDLETON
Frmr Attorney to Prince, Jay-Z & DMX
Founder & Managing Partner, 125 Ventures
The Alpha Nobody Is Talking About: Women’s Sports, Health & Deep Tech
DENNY POST
Board Director, Vital Farms & Travel + Leisure
Frmr CEO, Red Robin
Board Seats as a Wealth Strategy: Influence, Income & Optionality
HOLLY RUXIN
Frmr Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley & BofA
Founder & CEO, Montcalm TCR
Fuel the Future: Investing in Private Companies Through Your IRA & DAF
EMILY SCOTT
The Human Side of Money
Author, Speaker & Financial Navigator
The Story Behind Every Financial Decision You’ve Ever Made
TUTI SCOTT
Frmr Interim CEO, Tides Foundation
Author, Gender-Lens Investing & Philanthropy
Stop Writing Checks. Start Building a Giving Portfolio
KIM WILEMAN
Co-Founder, No Makeup Makeup
Inc. Female Founders 500 2026
The Advantage Nobody Talks About: Building a Business After 40
KELLY ANN WINGET
Raised $1B+ in Private Markets
Founder & CEO, Alternative Wealth Partners
Inc.500
The Portfolio You Haven’t Built Yet: Private Credit, Private Equity, Gold & Crypto
Working Agenda
9-10AM
Connect with Your Peer Matches and Have Breakfast
10:00 AM
Opening Remarks
The Story Behind Every Financial Decision You’ve Ever Made
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Every financial decision you have ever made – every investment you chose, every one you avoided, every conversation you postponed, every risk you took or didn’t – was shaped by something that happened long before you had any money at all. Your money story. Most people have never examined it. And yet it is running the show.
Research in financial psychology shows that our core beliefs about money – what psychologists call “money scripts” – are formed in childhood and followed unconsciously throughout adulthood. Studies find that children as young as five already show distinct patterns of financial behavior that foreshadow their adult decisions. And most people, no matter how financially sophisticated, never realize these beliefs are driving their choices.
The woman who can’t bring herself to spend on herself. The one who gives it all away. The one who holds on too tight. The one who never feels like enough, no matter how much she accumulates. These are not personality traits. They are money stories that have never been questioned – and they show up in every portfolio decision, every negotiation, every conversation about wealth.
And here is what makes this more than a personal conversation: those same stories get passed on. To our children, our employees, our communities. The beliefs we hold about money – who deserves it, who is good with it, who gets to have it – don’t stay private. They become the norms that shape the next generation’s relationship with wealth. Unexamined money stories don’t just limit individuals. They reinforce the broader patterns of who builds wealth and who doesn’t.
Emily Scott has spent her career at the intersection of the human side of money and the technical side of money – a space most advisors never enter. A certified Financial Transition Professional, TEDx speaker, and financial navigator with 30+ years of experience in investing, philanthropy, and managing a family office, Emily works with high-net-worth individuals and families to surface the stories that are quietly shaping their decisions – and rewrite the ones that aren’t serving them.
This conversation opens the day because everything else – how you invest, how you give, how you build, how you lead – flows from here.
The Advantage Nobody Talks About: Building a Business After 40
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The data says what the culture won’t: the average age of founders of the fastest-growing ventures in the U.S. is 45. A 50-year-old founder is 2.2x more likely to build a successful startup than a 30-year-old. A 60-year-old is 3x more likely. Gen X women now make up 69% of all women business owners in America.
The myth of the young founder has never matched reality. What predicts success is pattern recognition, capital access, network depth, and the clarity to know exactly which problems you are uniquely positioned to solve. Those are not gifts of youth. They are the compounding returns of a career well lived.
Fran Hauser spent 15 years as a Fortune 500 executive, rising to President of Digital at Time Inc., before walking away to build something entirely her own as an investor and bestselling author. M. Claire Chung ran global operations at Yoox Net-a-Porter Group before launching businesses in her 40s, most recently building and exiting a bioscience beauty brand from concept to acquisition. Cindy Gallop led BBH New York and Oxford before founding MakeLoveNotPorn and spending every year since rewriting the rules of how founders operate. Kim Wileman co-founded No Makeup Makeup and built Galla Beauty to manage $1 billion in client sales. Four different paths. The same conviction: experience is not a liability. It is the whole point.
Board Seats as a Wealth Strategy: Influence, Income & Optionality
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A board seat is not just a credential. It is a capital strategy. But nobody talks about what it actually pays, what it costs you if something goes wrong, and why the window for women is open right now.
The financial case is real. S&P 500 directors average $327,000 in total annual compensation. On private boards, the opportunity is less about the retainer and more about what you build – equity stakes, early access to deals, and relationships that follow you for decades. And across both, the compensation figure only tells part of the story. Deal flow, co-investment access, and a network that compounds in ways a salary never can are the returns that never show up on a pay stub.
The conversation most people skip is the other side. Directors can be personally sued by shareholders, employees, creditors, and regulators. Your personal assets are at risk. D&O insurance exists for this reason, but not every company provides adequate coverage and most first-time directors never think to ask.
Shaz Kahng served as Global GM at Nike and Board Chair at GoPro before becoming an award-winning author on breaking barriers in the boardroom. Denny Post currently serves on the boards of Vital Farms and Travel + Leisure after more than a decade as a Fortune 500 CEO, including Red Robin. Shelly Lombard is a Fortune 500 board director and audit chair, former Wall Street analyst, and founder of Schmooze. They will tell you what the market doesn’t.
Already Built: The Case for Buying a Business
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90% of startups fail within the first year. Meanwhile, 70% of acquired businesses are still operating a decade later. The math is not subtle.
Entrepreneurship through acquisition is one of the most underleveraged wealth strategies available to women with capital, operational experience, and the ambition to lead. Instead of starting from zero – no customers, no revenue, no proof of concept – you buy a business that already has all three, then bring your skills to scale it. The risk profile is fundamentally different. So are the returns.
There are more ways to buy a business than most people know. SBA loans, seller financing, earnouts, self-funded searches, and creative deal structures have made acquisition accessible to entrepreneurs who are not backed by institutional capital. And the timing has never been better: over $10 trillion in small business wealth is tied up in boomer-owned companies right now, with 11,000 boomers turning 65 every day. Most of those businesses will be sold, not passed down.
Heather Kernahan spent nearly a decade as Global CEO of Hotwire, one of the world’s leading technology communications agencies, before making her move. She didn’t start a company. She bought one. Now running The Content Bureau and actively looking for her next acquisition, she is building a portfolio of businesses on her own terms. Carrie Kerpen sold Likeable Media for eight figures, then launched The Whisper Group to advise founders on how to do the same. Two different sides of the same trade.
12:00 PM
Lunch
1:00 PM
The Questions You Should Be Asking, But Aren’t
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You hired the best. A wealth advisor. An estate planner. A tax accountant. An attorney. You trust them, you pay them, and you show up to the meetings. But are you actually getting everything they are capable of giving you?
Most people aren’t. Not because their advisors are withholding – but because the best strategies only get deployed when the right questions are asked. Your advisors are waiting for you to ask. The problem is nobody told you what those questions are.
Nearly 4 in 10 investors have switched or added a new advisor in the last three years. The number one reason? Unmet needs. Not bad advice – unmet needs. The strategies were available. They just were never surfaced. The irony of working with the best is that you have to know enough to unlock them. An advisor can only take you as far as your questions allow.
And the stakes get higher when life shifts. 70% of women leave their financial advisor within a year of losing a spouse. Women are twice as likely as men to cite divorce as the reason for opening a new investment account. In both cases the story is the same: the advisor had a relationship with the household, not the woman. When she became the sole decision-maker, there was nothing there to stand on.
This session changes that. Libby Clark is a former General Counsel and strategic advisor who founded LiKeWell and the Autonomy Framework, working with high-net-worth individuals on the legal architecture of their wealth. Alvina Lo leads Planning & Fiduciary strategy at BNY Wealth and spent 20+ years as a Trust & Estates attorney advising private wealth clients. Each pulling back the curtain on their own profession – and handing you the questions that change what your advisors do for you. This is the cheat code. Come with a pen.
1:00 PM (cont.)
The Portfolio You Haven’t Built Yet: Private Credit, Private Equity, Gold & Crypto
Learn More
Most investors are playing the same game with the same tools. Stocks, bonds, maybe some real estate. Meanwhile, the asset classes generating the most compelling risk-adjusted returns are sitting largely off their radar.
The numbers are hard to ignore. Since 2000, private equity has generated a net annualized return of 13% vs. 8% for public markets. Private credit has outperformed public markets for 24 consecutive years. Gold set more than 50 all-time highs and returned over 60% in 2025 alone – making it one of the strongest performing asset classes of the year. And crypto, once dismissed as speculative noise, attracted $75B in institutional flows within the first quarter after Bitcoin ETF approval – with 73% of institutional investors now planning to increase their digital asset exposure.
This is not a beginner’s conversation about diversification. It is a sophisticated look at how to construct a portfolio that includes the asset classes institutions have quietly been allocating to for years, and how accredited investors can access them today.
Kelly Ann Winget is the founder of Alternative Wealth Partners, one of the most recognized voices in the alternatives space. She has helped raise nearly $1 billion in private capital and built her career on making institutional-grade investments accessible to individual investors who are ready to think beyond Wall Street.
Real Estate Without the Landlord: How to Invest Through REITs, Funds & Private Syndications
Learn More
Most people think of real estate as the home they own or the vacation property they have been considering. That is not a real estate portfolio. That is a single illiquid asset with carrying costs, market risk, and a management headache if you want it to generate income.
A real estate portfolio looks different. REITs delivered a 14% total return in 2024 and a 35.7% five-year total return. Private funds, syndications, and debt funds offer different profiles – less liquidity, more control, and in the right deal, significantly higher returns. And the asset class itself has expanded far beyond what most people picture. Today’s real estate portfolio can include data centers powering the AI economy, healthcare facilities, cell towers, logistics networks, and single-family rental portfolios at institutional scale. These alternative property types now make up 42% of all U.S. commercial real estate value, up from 35% a decade ago – and that share is growing.
This session is about how to build a real estate allocation that works as hard as the rest of your portfolio – with the right vehicles, the right exposure, and the right understanding of where we are in the cycle right now. Andresa Guidelli is the co-founder of Real Estate InvestHER, a bestselling author, and one of the leading educators in passive real estate investing. Ange Matthews is an LP investor in REITs, hotels, and private real estate funds who has trained more than 3,500 investors through the Happy Investor Method. Kelly O’Brien leads investments at Wildflower LTD and previously ran Real Estate Investment Banking at Citi.
The Alpha Nobody Is Talking About: Women’s Sports, Health & Deep Tech
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The most interesting investment opportunities at this moment are hiding in plain sight. Sports. Entertainment. Deep tech. Most investors still treat them as passion plays – the kind of thing you do with fun money after your real portfolio is built. The data tells a different story.
Women’s sports revenue grew 4.5x faster than men’s sports between 2022 and 2024. A WNBA franchise purchased for $14M in 2019 is now worth $450M – a 30x return in five years. The investors who saw it early are not talking about it as a passion play anymore.
Deep tech is a different kind of opportunity. Not apps. Not platforms. Foundational science – AI infrastructure, quantum computing, biotech, defense technology, robotics. Deep tech funds yield an average net IRR of 17% vs. 10% for traditional tech. The window to get in early is still open.
Lorine Pendleton is the founder of 125 Ventures, a VC fund investing in women’s sports, media, and entertainment at the intersection of technology. Her prior fund achieved a net IRR of 31%, placing it in the top 5% of all VC funds globally. Reema Khan is the founder and CEO of Green Sands Equity – ranked in the top 5 investors in the U.S. by Fortune Magazine – with a portfolio that includes SpaceX, Spotify, Airbnb, and Synchron. Elise King is Managing Director of American Heart Association Ventures, where she leads Series A and B investments in women’s health – one of the most underfunded and highest-opportunity categories in venture. This panel brings together women who are actively deploying capital into these sectors and will show you exactly how.
3:30 PM
Champagne Reset
4:00 PM
Fuel the Future: Investing in Private Companies Through Your IRA & DAF
Learn More
In 1999 Peter Thiel used his Roth IRA to buy founder shares in a small startup called PayPal for $1,700. When eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, that $1,700 became $55 million – entirely tax-free. He reinvested into Facebook as its first outside investor. By 2019 his Roth IRA was worth $5 billion. Not a single dollar taxed.
Most people don’t know you can do this. And most people don’t know that the same logic applies to donor-advised funds.
There is $326 billion sitting in DAFs across America right now. Nearly doubled since 2020. Most of it parked – waiting to be deployed while the companies that could change the world are out there raising capital. A self-directed IRA and a properly structured DAF can both be used to invest in private companies, startups, and funds – within tax-advantaged accounts, with full IRS compliance. The only barrier is awareness.
This session demystifies both vehicles. How they work. What they can hold. How to set them up. And why using capital you have already earmarked – for retirement or for giving – to back the companies and founders you believe in is one of the most powerful and underutilized strategies available to accredited investors today.
Marcia Dawood has invested in over 50 startups and funds, chairs the SEC’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee, and is the author of Do Good While Doing Well. Patrice Brickman is the founder and CEO of Inspire Access, working to mobilize the $326 billion in idle DAF capital sitting on the sidelines. Holly Ruxin built her career at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America before founding Montcalm TCR. Roberta Hudy Valentine is the founder of nvstIRA and former director at Equity Trust Company, one of the country’s leading self-directed IRA custodians. They will show you exactly how these vehicles work in practice.
Stop Writing Checks. Start Building a Giving Portfolio.
Learn More
Most women give the way they were taught – reactively. A cause moves them, they write a check, they move on. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is not a strategy. And nearly 9 in 10 women say they want to do more to create positive social change. The desire is there. The architecture is missing.
Strategic philanthropy starts with clarity – about what you care about, what change you want to create, and which vehicles and structures will get you there. Giving circles, community foundations, direct grantmaking, impact investing, trust-based philanthropy – each works differently, reaches differently, and builds a different kind of relationship with the causes and communities you want to move. MacKenzie Scott did not just give $14 billion. She designed a giving philosophy, chose a structure, and deployed capital in a way that shifted how the entire sector thinks about power and trust.
You do not need $14 billion to give strategically. You need a framework.
Wendy Diamond is an impact investor and CEO of LDP Ventures who founded WEDO, a global philanthropic movement operating in 144 countries, backing women-led companies and social technology worldwide. Jessyca Dudley is the founder and CEO of Bold Ventures, a strategic advisory firm that has directed over $50 million to BIPOC-led organizations through equity-centered funding strategies that disrupt traditional philanthropy. Tuti Scott served as Interim CEO of the Tides Foundation and has spent her career as an author and gender-lens investing strategist. Two different approaches. One shared conviction: giving is a power move – and it should be designed that way.
5-7 PM
Cocktails and Connecting
Gift Bag Sponsors
The Catalyst Campus
The Mastercard NYC Tech Hub is a modern, light-filled innovation space located in the heart of Manhattan. Designed to inspire progress and creativity, it’s the perfect setting for bold ideas and game-changing conversations.
Expect cutting-edge architecture, energizing vibes, and a setting that mirrors the ambition of the women in the room.
Mastercard Tech Hub
150 5th Ave
New York, NY 10011
May 14, 2026 | Mastercard Tech Hub, New York
Tickets are limited and will sell out.
