Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Clerisy
Some entrepreneurs build one standout company. Alexandra Wilkis Wilson has built four. She joins Beanstalk to share how she did it, and what she’s learned along the way.
She first made waves as a co-founder of Gilt, the flash-sale pioneer that reshaped how luxury goods moved online. Gilt scaled to more than $650 million in revenue and became one of New York’s earliest unicorns.
From there, Alexandra co-founded GlamSquad, which brought on-demand beauty services into people’s homes, and Fitz, a personal styling startup later acquired by Tradesy. With each launch, she explored new ways to blend convenience, personalization, and trust.
Today, she leads Clerisy, a $100 million growth equity fund focused on consumer and tech-enabled commerce.
One of its recent investments is OLIPOP, a modern soda brand pushing into the next era of CPG (co-founder David Lester is also in the room at Beanstalk). It's exactly the kind of category-shaping bet Alexandra is known for.
But she’s always been just as focused on people as products.
In Gilt’s early days, she kept over 9,500 contacts on her BlackBerry and called it her “OG CRM.” That founder-first mindset still shapes how she works with teams today.
She also speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian – a global fluency that informs how she scales brands across markets and connects across communities.
She’s also the co-author of By Invitation Only, a New York Times bestseller chronicling Gilt’s rise, with endorsements from Mark Cuban and Arianna Huffington. It’s still one of the most referenced field guides for building a digital-first business.
At Beanstalk, Alexandra brings what she’s built across startups, brands, and markets: a sharp instinct for where consumer behavior is going, and a willingness to share the view from both sides of the table.
It’s a perspective that’s shaped by experience. That’s exactly the kind we’re excited to have in the room.
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