CAIS Live Conversations, Building With Alts

Model portfolios, private markets, and portfolio constructions are converging, and financial advisors may be rethinking how they build and scale portfolios. Sam Miller, who leads investments and research at Signature Estate & Investment Advisors (SEIA), joins host Alex Cavalieri to discuss his objectives-first approach to incorporating alternatives into model portfolios. He also shares the questions he believes advisors should ask before allocating to private markets and how his team uses AI to work faster while keeping decision-making in human hands. Chapter 1: Welcome and Sam's Path to Portfolio Construction [00:00]Chapter 2: How Portfolio Construction Has Evolved [04:30]Chapter 3: Models, Misconceptions, and Building Around Client Objectives [08:23]Chapter 4: Private Markets at Scale and Where Execution Breaks Down [13:22]Chapter 5: AI, Industry Evolution, and What a Platform Should Deliver [17:22]

Doug Sieg cold-called Lord Abbett in the early 1990s looking for a job. More than 30 years later, he’s the CEO. In this episode, Doug joins CAIS Co-President Brad Walker for a wide-ranging conversation covering his path to Lord Abbett, what he found when he took over as managing partner in 2018, and how the firm has built out a private credit platform while staying true to its roots as a public fixed-income manager. They also discuss Doug’s outlook on today’s macro environment, and reflects on the leadership lessons that guided his path to CEO. Chapters The Sieg Household [01:38]Three Brothers, One Industry [03:10]The Cold Call [07:04]Why He Stayed [08:44]Taking Over as Managing Partner [11:02]Building a Culture From the Inside Out [13:28]Leaders Aren't Born [18:24]Building the Private Credit Platform [22:28]Conviction and Caution [30:36]What Leadership Looks Like at Every Level [44:55]

What does thirty years of investing through the dot-com bust, the great financial crisis, and COVID teach you? For Nuveen CIO Saira Malik, the answer comes down to three things: focus on the fundamentals, stay the course, and don't let the noise win. Saira joins Brad Walker on CAIS Live Conversations to share her read on today's macro landscape, the case for evolving the traditional 60/40, and how she talks clients through market downturns. She also opens up about her career path, one that started with rejection from every firm on Wall Street, and what that experience taught her about resilience. Chapters Chapter 1: From Stockton to Wall Street (00:01:35) Chapter 2: Learning to Read the Cycle (00:04:38) Chapter 3: 125 Years of Nuveen: From Muni Bonds to $1.4 Trillion (00:06:03) Chapter 4: Beyond 60/40 (00:12:15) Chapter 5: Getting Private Markets Right (00:16:29) Chapter 6: Mapping the Macro Landscape (00:18:04) Chapter 7: The AI Trade: Spending, Productivity, and What Comes Next (00:21:39) Chapter 8: Infrastructure, Data Centers, and the Real Assets Opportunity (00:23:11) Chapter 9: Staying the Course: How to Keep Clients Invested Through Volatility (00:31:43) Chapter 10: Thirty Years, One Philosophy (00:33:14) 

David DeVoe, Founder and CEO of DeVoe & Company, has spent more than 25 years advising independent RIAs through some of the most significant decisions of their professional lives. He joins CAIS CMO Alex Cavalieri at CAIS Live | Leaders in Wealth to share his view on what's driving M&A activity for the independent advisor, and where he believes it’s heading.  David also discusses why organic growth has become an important metric in firm valuation, what a real growth culture looks like from the inside out, and why he believes succession planning is about to re-emerge as the dominant force in deal activity. He shares his framework for evaluating cultural fit in M&A and the questions he believes every founder should be asking before they go to market. Chapters Chapter 1: The Structural Shift in RIA M&A (02:42)Chapter 2: The Psychology of the Independent Founder (05:10)Chapter 3: What a Firm Health Diagnostic Really Looks Like (08:11)Chapter 4: Organic Growth as a Valuation Multiplier (08:59)Chapter 5: Why the Industry Underinvests in Growth (10:40)Chapter 6: Building a Comprehensive Integrated Growth Strategy (13:18)Chapter 7: Starting With Purpose (16:57)Chapter 8: Dynamic KPIs and the Long Game (21:46)Chapter 9: Making Culture Tangible in M&A (29:59)Chapter 10: Five to Seven Years of Activity Ahead (31:38)

Recorded live at CAIS Live, this episode features David Breach, President of Vista Equity Partners, in conversation with CAIS Co-President Brad Walker. David reflects on a nontraditional path, from food salesman at 19 to Michigan Law to his current role as part of a $100 billion private equity firm, and what he believes each chapter taught him. He shares Vista's founding operating thesis, some of the hardest lessons learned across 90 portfolio companies, and his perspective on where enterprise software stands today. From factory floors to DoorDash drivers, he uses vivid analogies throughout to cut through the noise around generative AI and what it actually means for the industry. ChaptersChapter 1: From Food Salesman to Firm President (00:02:18) Chapter 2: What Sales Taught Him About Investing (00:04:08) Chapter 3: Vista's Founding Thesis, 26 Years Later (00:05:38) Chapter 4: The Hardest Lesson: Management Matters Most (00:09:56) Chapter 5: Reading the SaaS Selloff (00:12:35) Chapter 6: The Factory Floor and the Agentic Shift (00:17:52) Chapter 7: AI Is Going to Eat Services, Not Software (00:21:15) Chapter 8: The Rule of 60 (00:27:41) Chapter 9: The Inference Cost Problem (00:35:23)