Bryan Kelley

Managing Director at WhiteHawk Capital Partners

Speaker

Bryan Kelley brings over 25 years of experience in private markets, having served as a pension consultant, in-house business developer, and capital raiser. Throughout his career, he has specialized in sales and relationship management, working with a wide spectrum of U.S. institutional investors—including public and private pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, family offices, fund-of-funds managers, and investment consultants.

Currently, Bryan serves as Managing Director and leads Investor Relations at WhiteHawk Capital Partners, a private credit investment firm that provides asset-based lending solutions to companies across diverse industries. WhiteHawk is known for delivering innovative and flexible non-traditional capital solutions to businesses seeking liquidity and growth financing.

Bryan began his career in private markets at Wilshire Associates, a leading U.S. pension consulting and investment management firm, where he supported client commitments to over twenty private equity, credit, and venture capital managers. He later joined Merrill Lynch as a Director in private funds advisory, followed by a role as Managing Director in the Alternatives Funds Group at Deutsche Bank before leaving to launch his own firm in 2004.

For 16 years, Bryan was a Principal/Founder and Managing Director at NovaFund Advisors, where he led business development efforts, supported private equity, credit, and real asset managers with market entry strategies, and oversaw institutional sales across the U.S., with a focus on West Coast investors. Under his leadership, NovaFund raised over $6 billion in committed capital. Most recently, Bryan was a Managing Director on the business development team at Clarion Capital Partners, representing the firm’s private equity and structured credit strategies.

Bryan holds a B.A. from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and an M.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business.