Dakota Live! Podcast

Private credit has spent the past year under a microscope. There have been questions about valuations and a growing list of allocators asking where the risk is actually hiding?

In today’s episode of the Dakota Live! Podcast, Robert Morier sits down with Tom Majewski, Founder and Managing Partner of Eagle Point Credit Management, to take that question head-on.

In this Episode, Rob and Tom dig into a Credit Manager's outlook for the next credit cycle. How this cycle may differ from a 2008-style shock, and how the current “slow-moving flush” may play out over years...

In this episode of the Dakota Live! Podcast, host Robert Morier sits down in the Philadelphia studio with Matt Malone, President and Head of Investment Management at Opto Investments.

From his early days as an attorney advising on alternative investments to sitting on both sides of the table at FS Investments, Matt shares how working across legal, traditional finance, and venture cultures shaped the way he evaluates investments. He also explains how Opto is working to fill the gaps RIAs face in private markets, from sourcing and due diligence to the technology and back-office support needed to...

What happens when the women just behind the industry’s senior ranks build the network they wished existed? In this special episode of the Dakota Live! Podcast, host Robert Morier heads to New York City for a roundtable with the founders of The Next Collective, a community built by and for women at the same stage of their investment careers.

Joining the conversation:

What happens when a firm that helped pioneer minority investing in asset managers decides to step off the private equity treadmill?

In this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier welcomes Brad Mook, Managing Director of Investments and Finance at Rosemont Investment Group, for a conversation about the evolution of GP stakes, the economics of owning investment management businesses, and the importance of permanent capital in building sustainable firms.

Founded in 2000, Rosemont was among the early specialists making minority investments in employee-owned asset management firms. After more than 30 investments across three private equity funds, the firm...

Is a traditional background in high finance, big tech, or startups required to break into venture capital? The short answer is no. Maddi Holman is living proof of that.

In today’s episode of the Dakota Live! podcast, Maddi Holman, Co-Founder of Daring Ventures and host of the Let’s Be Heard podcast, sits down with Robert Morier to discuss her unique entrance into venture capital.

Daring Ventures is an NYC-based venture capital firm focused on pre-seed investing in B2B vertical SaaS and applied AI solutions. Founded in 2024 by Maddi Holman and Joseph Alalou, Dari...

What does it take to earn a place in a portfolio when the default answer is no?

For Chip Caravati and Chris Dion of Brockenbrough, selectivity is not simply a feature of manager research. It shapes the way the firm allocates capital, builds portfolios, chooses partners, and thinks about its own business.

In this episode of Dakota Live!, Chip, Brockenbrough’s Chief Investment Officer, and Chris, Co-Chief Investment Officer for Institutional Investments, join Robert Morier for a wide-ranging conversation about how a deliberately small investment team makes decisions across public and private markets.

Th...

What does it actually take for a private real estate manager to earn an institutional allocation?

In this episode of the Dakota Live Podcast, host Robert Morier sits down with Liz Bell, Managing Director and Co-Head of Real Estate at Hamilton Lane, for an inside look at how institutional investors evaluate real estate managers, underwrite opportunities, manage risk, and make investment decisions.

Liz takes us behind the investment committee doors and into the manager due diligence process—from the first pitch and track-record analysis to on-site meetings, RFPs, portfolio construction, and the final IC debate.

Erwin Thompson, CEO of EQT Infrastructure Company (EQIC) and 17-year EQT veteran, joins Robert Morier on Dakota Live! to break down the AI data center and power build-out, a capital expenditure wave that hyperscalers are expected to push past $4–5 trillion by 2030.

Erwin explains why the U.S. is adding an estimated 15–20 gigawatts of data center demand a year against a fraction of that in new supply, why hyperscalers are now on pace to outspend the U.S. Department of Defense, and how EQT, the first infrastructure investor in data centers with EdgeConneX, is positioning across digital, energy, and...

Most CIO conversations happen years after a transition is finished, or years before one starts. This one happens in the middle of it.

Trevor Graham was named Co-Chief Investment Officer of TIFF Investment Management in 2026 as part of a planned leadership transition alongside longtime CIO Jay Willoughby. In this episode, he walks Robert Morier through a succession plan as it unfolds in real time: why a lengthy handoff is a gift rather than a formality, what he's borrowed from watching GP succession plans succeed and fail across 15+ years of manager selection, why the goal is to keep...

GP seeding is one of the least understood corners of private equity — and one of the fastest growing.

In this episode of Dakota Live, Robert Morier sits down with Eric Zoller, Co-Founder and CEO of Taproot Capital, to break down how first-time funds and spin-out managers actually get launched, capitalized, and raised.

Eric founded SixPoint Partners in 2007, built it into one of the largest independent fund placement advisors in the middle market, sold it to PNC in 2019, and led private capital advisory at Harris Williams before launching Taproot in 2025.

What does it look like to sit in the CIO seat?

This episode of Dakota Live was recorded on campus at West Virginia University, bringing students directly into the room with institutional investors responsible for billions in capital.

Rob Morier sits down with:

• Jim Bethea, CIO of the WVU Foundation
• Craig Slaughter, CIO of the West Virginia Investment Management Board
• Josh Hall, Dean of the WVU Business School

This is not a surface-level discussion.

It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how portfolios are actually built—and what matters fa...

In this special On the Road episode, we travel to Baylor University in Waco, Texas, to record a live, on-campus conversation with some of the most thoughtful allocators and investment leaders in the institutional investment world.

Hosted from Baylor’s campus, this episode brings together endowment leadership, OCIOs, asset managers, and students for a wide-ranging discussion on long-term investing, manager research, risk, character, and relationship-driven decision-making—the things that actually matter when capital is on the line.
Joining the conversation:

• Dave Morehead, Chief Investment Officer, Baylor University
• Renee Hanna, Managing Director of Investments, Baylor U...

In this special episode of the Dakota Live! Podcast, host Robert Morier takes the show back on the road to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he sits down with Jim Dunn, Chief Executive Officer of Verger Capital Management.
From his beginnings as a first-generation college graduate and collegiate soccer goalie to leading one of the most respected OCIO firms in the country, Jim shares how formative experiences in athletics, lifeguarding, and family life shaped his views on risk, leadership, and client service.

Jim offers candid insights into:

• How Verger’s client-first service model differentiates it i...

Every allocator says they're looking for great investors.

Jason Howard argues they're actually looking for something else.

In this conversation, the founder of New Catalyst Strategic Partners introduces an idea that deserves far more attention in institutional investing: fundability.

Some investors generate exceptional returns but never build enduring firms. Others create organizations that attract capital for decades. The difference isn't always the track record. It's the ability to build trust, communicate a vision, develop a culture, and convince institutional investors that what you're building will outlast you.

Jason's perspective...

Private markets are moving deeper into wealth management. But access is only part of the equation.

The harder questions are: Which managers should you invest with? How should you construct a private markets portfolio? And when does a fund of funds actually justify another layer of fees?

On this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier sits down with Samir Kaji, Co-Founder and CEO of Allocate, to discuss the rapidly changing intersection of private markets, wealth management, manager selection, and technology.

Samir has spent more than 25 years in and around private markets. Before founding...

Few investment leaders have spent more than three decades selecting, evaluating, and overseeing the world's best investment managers. Even fewer have done it while leading one of the industry's largest multi-asset investment platforms.

In this special episode of dakota live!, Robert Morier sits down with Chris Vella, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of BNY Advisors, who oversees an investment organization responsible for more than $175 billion in client assets across institutional investors, RIAs, wealth managers, family offices, and intermediaries worldwide.

Chris rarely appears on podcasts, making this...

The lines between institutional investing and wealth management are disappearing.

In this episode of Dakota Live, Robert Morier sits down with Dhruv Maniktala, CFA, Chief Investment Officer and Partner at True North Advisors and CIO of Western Alternative Strategies, to discuss how a nearly $6 billion wealth management platform evaluates private markets, constructs institutional-quality portfolios, and sources differentiated investment opportunities.

For asset managers, consultants, RIAs, family offices, endowments, and institutional allocators, this conversation provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at how one investment committee evaluates managers across...

On this episode of Dakota Live!, host Robert Morier sits down with Tim Yates, President & CEO of Commonfund OCIO, whose path to leading an $18 billion investment platform is anything but typical — he started out teaching Spanish and Italian at Fordham Prep in the Bronx.

Tim shares how a rotational analyst role pulled him into private equity, what emerging markets investing in Latin America taught him about risk and currency, and how the 2003 market dislocation gave birth to Commonfund's OCIO business.

He and Robert dig into how endowments and foundations actually think about return ob...

On this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier sits down with Chris Brimsek, Founder and Managing Partner of CAB Advisory, for a deep discussion on one of the most important—and underexplored—topics in private markets: how great investment firms are built.

Chris advises founders and senior leadership teams across private equity, venture capital, real estate, infrastructure, private credit, and GP solutions. His work focuses on the organizational, strategic, and human capital questions that often determine whether a firm can scale, attract talent, retain LP trust, and sustain long-term success.

This conversation goes beyond traditional mana...

The RIA landscape is changing fast.

Today’s top wealth advisors are doing far more than traditional portfolio management. They’re acting as investment committees, tax strategists, coaches, and long-term partners helping families navigate increasingly complex financial decisions.

In this episode of dakota, we sit down with Fulcrum Capital’s Kathryn Fisher, Chief Wealth Strategist, and Hans Krippaehne, Director of Investments, to explore how modern RIAs are evolving to meet that challenge.

We discuss how Fulcrum integrates holistic wealth planning with institutional-quality investment management—bringing together portfolio construction, manager selection, due diligence, tax efficien...

Stephen Chase, Associate Director of Investments at Drexel University, joins host, Robert Morier to discuss how a three-person investment office oversees approximately $1.25 billion across the university's endowment and investment portfolio.

In this conversation, Stephen shares his unconventional path from studying anthropology at Trinity College to helping manage one of Philadelphia's leading university endowments.

We explore how qualitative thinking, manager due diligence, portfolio construction, private markets, real assets, AI, and risk management shape investment decisions inside a modern institutional investment office.

Topics include:

• Managing a billion-dollar university endowment with a lean investment te...

What happens when you leave the conference stage and sit down with investors where they actually work?
Over the past year, Dakota Live! has traveled the country, recording conversations with CIOs, investment office leaders, consultants, OCIOs, foundations, endowments, family offices, and institutional investors. This special episode brings together the most important themes, market observations, and portfolio discussions from those conversations.
In this episode, we explore:
• How allocators are thinking about portfolio construction in today's market
• The outlook for private equity, venture capital, and private credit
• Manager selection and due diligence trends
• The growing role of...

Melody Koh, Partner at NextView Ventures, joins the Dakota Live Podcast to discuss how artificial intelligence is reshaping venture capital, startup building, company scaling, and the future of work.

As both a seed-stage investor and the leader of NextView's AI and data initiatives, Melody offers a unique perspective on what separates winning founders from the rest in an AI-native economy. From evaluating startup teams and identifying durable competitive advantages to redesigning venture capital workflows with AI agents, this conversation explores how technology is changing both sides of the investment table.

Topics include:

What happens when one of the world’s largest asset managers starts rethinking portfolio construction in the age of AI?

On this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier sits down with Michael Gates, Managing Director and Head of Model Portfolio Solutions for the Americas within BlackRock’s Multi-Asset Strategies & Solutions platform.

The conversation explores how BlackRock is thinking about:

• Model portfolios and advisor scale
• Active vs. passive portfolio construction
• The rise of active ETFs
• Bitcoin ETFs and alternative allocations
• AI’s impact on investing and research workflows
• Behavioral coaching and “advi...

Tax used to sit downstream from the investment process.

Today, it’s moving upstream.

In this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier sits down with Dave Sekula, CEO of GTM (Global Tax Management), to discuss how tax strategy, technology, operational complexity, and institutional investing are becoming increasingly intertwined.

The conversation comes at a timely moment, following the SEC’s recent proposal to potentially shift public companies from quarterly to semiannual reporting.

While the headline sounds regulatory, the implications reach much further into how asset managers, allocators, OCIOs, RIAs, and corporate finance team...

On this episode of the Dakota Live Podcast, we sit down with Andrew Deck, Vice President and Head of Alternative Investments at LPL Financial, alongside his colleague Matt Doyle, Head of Investment Due Diligence, for an inside look at how one of the largest advisor platforms in the country is thinking about alternatives, manager research, sourcing, and portfolio construction today.
LPL Financial is one of the largest independent wealth management and advisor platforms in the country, supporting more than 32,000 financial professionals and serving approximately 8 million Americans across advisory, brokerage, and institutional channels.
What makes LPL particularly interesting...

In this special on-the-road edition of the Dakota Live Podcast, host Robert Morier brings the show to Atlanta for a live recording at Georgia State University in front of students from GSU's Student Managed Investment Fund and Drexel University.
Joining Robert on the podcast:

Together, they unpack what it takes to ste...

Before something becomes an asset, a platform, or a strategy, it has to become a habit. And it's exactly why this conversation matters for allocators, investors, and operators alike.

On this episode of Dakota Live, Robert Morier sits down with Chris Doody, founder of Piada Italian Street Food, and Lance Juhas, the company's CEO, to go inside one of the most disciplined growth stories in American fast casual.

For the investment salesperson: This episode gives you a rare, tangible example of what real unit economics, capital discipline, and scalable growth actually look like inside an...

In a market where allocators are increasingly focused on healthcare innovation, growth equity discipline, and the role of operators in driving outcomes, this episode sits directly at the intersection.

This conversation with Sal DeTrane of Empactful Capital extends a theme we’ve been hearing consistently from CIOs, OCIOs, and allocators across the Dakota Live platform: the next wave of value creation in private markets is being driven by execution, not just access.

Sal brings that lens into focus.

With a background that spans venture, investment banking, and hands-on operating leadership, he re...

Join Dakota Live! as we sit down with senior leaders from one of the largest investment consultants in North America, Callan, for a deep dive into private markets, hedge funds, and their process behind manager selection.

Ashley Kahn leads private equity manager research at Callan. Her work lives at that intersection of pattern recognition, judgment, and repetition, seeing enough deals to know what’s real and what’s just a good story.

Tony Lissuzzo sits on the other side of the table as an investment consultant, working directly with endowments and foundations on portfolio construction. Befo...

Join dakota Live! as we sit down with Jeff Croteau, Founder & CIO of Tide Cycle Resources, to discuss building durable portfolios, the evolution of the OCIO model, and why patience—not prediction—drives long-term success.

We explore what it means to step away from a traditional institutional consulting career and launch a focused, high-conviction investment platform designed for families and foundations navigating increasingly complex markets.

With approximately $3 billion advised across client portfolios, Tide Cycle is built on a simple idea: stability, discipline, and thoughtful asset allocation matter more than complexity or constant change.

Jeff...

This episode starts as a parody.

An April Fool’s take on private equity, financial media, and the way we position ourselves in the investment industry.

It’s exaggerated. It’s intentional. And it might feel too familiar.

Then we shift.

Because behind the character is a real conversation about something that matters—

how content is created, how differentiation actually works, and why most financial firms get it wrong.

What You’ll Get:

• A satirical look at private equity culture and...

What does it look like to sit in the CIO seat?

This episode of Dakota Live was recorded on campus at West Virginia University, bringing students directly into the room with institutional investors responsible for billions in capital.

Rob Morier sits down with:

This is not a surface-level discussion.

It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how portfolios are ac...

Instead of sitting across from an allocator, this week we flip the table—and sit in the seat of an emerging manager building a firm from the ground up.
In this conversation with Brandon Ladoff, Founder & Portfolio Manager of Denmark Capital, we explore what it actually looks like to launch a boutique investment firm in today’s market—where every decision mirrors the exact questions allocators ask behind closed doors.

From fundraising realities to portfolio construction, from volatility to conviction, this episode is a case study in what emerging managers must get right to survive—and win.

What does it really take to back the next generation of investment managers?

In this special live recording of the Dakota Live Podcast from Drexel University’s Boathouse Row, host Robert Morier moderates a rare discussion on GP seeding across three different asset classes—hedge funds, venture capital, and lower-middle-market private equity.

While GP seeding is often discussed within a single asset class, this conversation brings together three distinct perspectives to explore how the strategy evolves depending on the market, the structure of capital, and the type of investor being backed.

The panel exam...

In this episode of dakota Live!, we step into a space where venture capital meets operator realism.

While we often sit with allocators and emerging manager gatekeepers, today we turn the lens toward the managers themselves — and examine how early-stage consumer investing mirrors the same discipline allocators demand in emerging manager due diligence.

Robert Morier sits down with Sean Kelly and Christine Wang of Family Fund to unpack what underwriting consumer brands can teach us about underwriting people — and why early-stage due diligence in venture is less about trend-chasing and more about pattern recognition, character asse...

In the latest episode of dakota live!, we step into a part of the market that rarely gets explained well — the mechanics of volatility trading.

As equity markets move through higher dispersion, regime shifts, and increasingly systematic flows, some of the most interesting price discovery is happening in derivatives.

Volatility isn’t just a hedge or a headline metric. It’s an asset shaped by positioning, liquidity, and structural supply-demand imbalances.

We discuss how firms like Zero Delta, a hedge fund of funds, allocating to specialists trading single-name and index options — evaluate markets where de...

In this special “On the Road” episode of the Dakota Live! Podcast, Robert Morier travels to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for a live CIO panel discussion on endowment management, private equity, private credit, asset allocation, and manager research & due diligence.
Featuring:

Recorded in f...

Retail and wealth management platforms inside large banks are increasing exposure to private markets—but not through hype, shortcuts, or “democratization” headlines.

They’re doing it through institutional-grade manager research, governance, and due diligence.

In this episode of Dakota Live, host Robert Morier sits down with Scott Lavelle, Managing Director and Head of Investment Advisor Research & Product Management at PNC Bank, to unpack how one of the largest U.S. bank platforms evaluates, selects, and monitors investment managers across public and private markets.

In this episode of Dakota Live!, host Robert Morier sits down with Scott Schweighauser, Managing Partner of Borealis Strategic Capital Partners, for a wide-ranging conversation on GP seeding, hedge fund history, and why now is such a compelling moment to back emerging managers.

Scott brings decades of experience across trading, fund-of-funds investing, and early-stage hedge fund seeding to unpack how the hedge fund industry has evolved—from the early, relationship-driven days through institutionalization, the GFC, and today’s renewed focus on differentiated alpha. 

The discussion explores why emerging managers can outperform early in their lifecycle, how t...