Kyle Barrett

Kyle Barrett is Vice President and Director of Corporate Tax at McWane, a Birmingham, Alabama-based family-owned industrial company. McWane’s leadership page says he joined the company in 1991 and leads the corporate tax function. In addition to tax, McWane states that he has overseen pension-plan and 401(k) retirement-plan administration and investments, and has worked on acquisitions.

Barrett graduated from the University of South Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant. Before joining McWane, he worked at Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. A 2017 Profile Magazine article says McWane was one of his clients before the company hired him as assistant controller in 1991 when it brought income-tax work in house.

His public profile is that of a corporate finance, tax, retirement-plan, and acquisition executive rather than a traditional venture investor. The available sources do not verify the stub’s “Angel Investors” role, seed-stage focus, check size, or any personal angel portfolio. The investment-related evidence found is tied to McWane’s corporate acquisitions, retirement-plan investments, and long-term family-owned-company capital strategy.

Barrett is a member of the Tax Leadership Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Taxation Committee, and previously served on the Fiscal Responsibility Committee. Profile Magazine reported that through the Fiscal Responsibility Committee, a joint effort of the Alabama Society of CPAs and the Business Council of Alabama, he provided tax-legislation input to elected officials.

• No public source found verifies Barrett as an active angel investor, seed investor, or venture investor.
• His documented investment exposure is corporate: McWane says he has overseen pension and 401(k) plan administration and investments and worked on acquisitions.
• McWane’s strategic acquisition activity, as described by Barrett in Profile Magazine, moved beyond foundries into fire extinguishers, pressure tanks, and later technology businesses focused on cellular communications, distributed antenna systems, radio-frequency coverage extensions, and intelligent wireless control and monitoring technology.
• Barrett described McWane’s diversification logic by saying, “In the United States, we have gone about as far as we can in water distribution.”
• His stated capital-orientation is long-term and family-business driven: Barrett told Profile Magazine that McWane does not have to focus on public-company short-term goals and aims to leave “a sustainable company in good shape for future generations.”