Carly Williams

Founder at Grove Capital Ventures

Speaker

Ms. Williams is passionate about helping funds grow, and bringing high conviction and unique investment funds to her investor base. Ms. Williams is a seasoned finance professional with extensive experience in capital raising, investor relations, and structured credit. Based in Coconut Grove, Miami, she has a proven track record of securing global institutional capital and building strategic investor relationships across hedge funds, private credit, structured products, and asset-backed/real estate lending.

Ms. Williams holds degrees in Engineering and Economics from Vanderbilt University. She began her career at Goldman Sachs (2007–2012) in New York City as a member of the Strategic Portfolio Solutions Group within Mortgage Trading/FICC. She specialized in MBS, ABS, CDOs, CLOs, and other structured transactions, executing complex asset-backed deals, including balance sheet restructurings and large portfolio dispositions. She worked closely with banks and insurance clients to optimize liquidity, manage legacy structured product exposure, and enhance balance sheet efficiency.

She then joined Pine River Capital (2012–2016) in New York City as a Fixed Income Fund Product Specialist on the Investor Relations team, leading key capital-raising and business development efforts across relative value hedge funds and a reinsurance start-up. As a Vice President, she secured over $1 billion in investor commitments from Fund-of-Funds, Family Offices, Insurance firms, and Foundations across the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and the Middle East. She played a key role in marketing hedge fund and insurance strategies, managing investor relations, due diligence, and fundraising initiatives.

Most recently, Ms. Williams served as Managing Director at Kawa Capital (2016–2024) in Miami, where she led institutional investor relations and business development globally, not including Latin America. She was instrumental in securing $1.22 billion in capital, driving the firm’s AUM growth, and closing multiple $100M+ separately managed accounts for pensions, sovereign wealth funds, RIAs, and family offices. She spearheaded fund launches, structured investor terms, and managed operational due diligence processes. Additionally, she established key institutional relationships, secured a major insurance-backed term warehouse facility, and expanded the firm's global investor base across credit, macro, and asset-backed lending strategies.

Ms. Williams has active FINRA Series 82, Series 63, Series 65, SIE and is a broker dealer registered representative, as well as an Investment Advisor Representative (IAR).

Securities offered through FNEX Capital, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. FNEX and Grove Capital Ventures are not affiliated.