We created The Whisper Group to give every female founder access to guidance that gets her to an exit she's proud of, on her timeline and terms.
Most female founders never sell their business. Not because it isn't sellable. Because no one told them it was an option, or sat with them long enough to show them how.
Selling a business buys freedom to reinvest, rest, pay it forward or build again. Women deserve a partner in that process who has been in their position: an advisor who built, sold, and lived through the identity evolution that happens on the other side.
MEET OUR FOUNDERS
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder Carrie Kerpen
Exited Founder | Award-Winning Entrepreneur | Author | Podcast Host | Speaker
“I built and scaled one of the world's first social media agencies, Likeable, alongside my husband Dave. 14 years later, we sold it for eight figures.”
In many ways the sale was ideal and well worth celebrating, but it was also isolating and left me feeling totally alone.
The exit process took place in rooms dominated by men. Despite the large network I’d built running our agency, Likeable, I found so few women who had gone through an exit transaction. I had nowhere to turn to discuss the personal, professional, emotional and financial ramifications of selling a business I worked so hard to build.
Research confirmed what I instinctively suspected: the exit landscape is not level. Women are capturing just 0.8% of exit value in this country, not for lack of excellence but for lack of access.
That’s an undeniable wealth-building gap, but in an era of girl boss energy and female founder empowerment, no one was talking about it.
My exit changed my life, and I couldn't reconcile the fact that so few women were getting the same opportunity.
I entered the sale process feeling under-prepared, under-educated, and under-resourced because there was no other option. I built The Whisper Group so no female founder has to say the same. We've assembled the largest collective of exited female founders who defied the odds and came back to pay their knowledge forward. Together we're closing The Exit Gap® for good, one successful sale at a time.
Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder Maggie Lord
Exited Founder | 2026 Inc. Female Founder 500 | Author x 6 | Board Member
“I started Rustic Wedding Chic in 2008 from my kitchen table without a business plan or investors. 12 years later, I sold it to david’s bridal.”
I was 26 years old, finishing my master’s degree and planning my own wedding. Many of the social and sharing tools were not developed and so finding ideas, inspiration, and vendors to bring my vision to life was the largest challenge. Frustrated by the lack of authentic, meaningful content for brides like me, I made the bold and admittedly naïve decision to build it myself with $1,400 of my own money.
What began as a passion project quickly became something far bigger. Rustic Wedding Chic grew into a category-defining media platform that helped pioneer the online wedding space, reaching millions of readers each month and transforming how couples discovered inspiration for their weddings and the event vendors needed to bring it to life.
Over the years, the brand expanded into licensed products, national media appearances, strategic partnerships, and six published books, all built from an idea born at a kitchen table.
But more than anything, Rustic Wedding Chic became proof that women can build extraordinary companies from intuition, grit, creativity, and an unwavering belief in what’s possible, even when no one hands them permission to begin. Twelve years later, I sold it to David's Bridal.
I left that experience with more than a successful exit. For the first time, I had a clear-eyed understanding of what female founders are up against. Women are building valuable business assets with no idea what they’re sitting on. No one telling them their business is sellable or that they have a choice about when and how to walk away. Wealth left on the table not because their business wasn't worth more, but because they didn’t have an unbiased advocate in their corner.
When Carrie and I found each other, our philosophies aligned immediately. The Whisper Group is the resource neither of us had when we needed it most, and the partnership every female founder deserves.
OUR FIRST ACQUISITION
Chief Operating Officer Caitlyn Wells
We don’t just advise on exits and acquisitions. We live them. We supported Caitlyn from scale to sale and ultimately acquired her company to provide our clients with industry-leading operations systems.
“After six years building, I wasn't looking to hand everything over and walk away. My best exit took a different shape, trading in the solo-founder role for a true partnership behind a mission I’m all in on: closing The Exit Gap.”
Caitlyn Wells founded Upwell Strategies in 2020 on the belief that a business shouldn't depend on any one person to run, not even its founder. Over six years, her agency worked with over 120 founders, building custom systems and processes in key areas like client experience, team development, and operational strategy.
In 2024, she began working with The Whisper Group as its fractional COO, joining Carrie and Maggie nearly on day one. Over two years, a pattern became clear: the founders The Whisper Group was guiding toward exit were often facing the same issue: messy operations quietly lowering their businesses' value.
Upwell's work was the missing piece, and the two companies' offerings fit together naturally.
In 2026, Upwell Strategies became The Whisper Group's first acquisition. For The Whisper Group, the acquisition brought operational expertise in-house to meet a need its clients felt heavily.
For Caitlyn, it created her own exit story: one she chose from a place of empowerment and joy. Now, as COO of The Whisper Group, she and her team build the systems that ready The Whisper Group's founders for successful exits on their own terms.
OUR LEADERSHIP TEAM
Managing Partner Molly McCartan
“I joined The Whisper Group to help founders build a path to sustainable, diversified revenue that makes their business more valuable, resilient, and more ready to sell.”
As Managing Partner, Molly leads all revenue including new business, strategic partnerships, media assets and enterprise solutions turning our mission into a movement. With more than 13 years of experience across M&A, growth strategy, media partnerships and business development, she knows what it takes to build something worth buying.
Head Of Marketing Fatima Teos
“Early in my career I spent a lot of time around real wealth and noticed how rarely women were the ones holding it. The Whisper Group exists to change that, and I get to build the brand and story that helps more women see themselves in that room. I can't think of work I'd rather be doing."
As Head of Marketing, Fatima leads brand, storytelling, and marketing for The Whisper Group, turning a bold mission into a movement founders want to be part of. She's a brand strategist at heart, fluent in the narrative and the numbers, drawing on an earlier decade in private wealth management to market this work with a unique perspective. A first-generation Latina builder and storyteller, she understands both what founders are building and what it's worth.