What does it actually mean to put planning first — before compliance, before tax prep, before anything else? John Mark Prewitt, CPA and Founder and Managing Member of Cohesion, joins Mike Langford and Todd Sorrel for a conversation that every founder, operator, and private markets leader needs to hear.

John Mark built Cohesion around a simple but rare idea: that the most valuable thing an accounting and advisory firm can do for its clients is plan first — and let compliance follow. In this episode he breaks down what that looks like in practice, why most firms aren't doing it, and what's sitting on the table for the clients who haven't had a real planning partner yet.

In this episode:

• Why estate tax is the tax most founders aren't planning for — and why John Mark calls it "not your problem, but your responsibility"
• The major changes to QSBS and Section 1202 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — including the increase from $10M to $15M exclusion per original issuer and the new partial exemptions at the 3 and 4 year hold marks
• How to make smart multi-year tax plans when the code keeps changing
• The most common (and costly) mistakes John Mark finds when a new client comes in after years of going it alone — including Section 461 loss limits, net investment income tax, and balance sheet blind spots
• The story behind building Cohesion — and why culture and empathy are at the center of everything the firm does
• Why trust is the foundation of every client relationship, and how AI-enabled fraud is raising the stakes for everyone moving money

Connect with John Mark Prewitt and Cohesion:

• John Mark Prewitt on LinkedIn
• Cohesion — cohesionco.com

Questions or guest suggestions? Reach us at podcast@6lock.com

CHAPTERS

0:00 - Welcome & The Moose Story

7:38 - What "Planning First" Actually Means

14:12 - The Estate Tax Wake-Up Call

20:30 - QSBS & Section 1202 Explained

24:24 - Planning When the Tax Code Keeps Moving

32:50 - The Most Common (and Costly) DIY Mistakes

36:47 - Building Cohesion & Why Trust Is Everything

What happens when a $64 million wire is ready to go out the door and you can't verify the account it's going to? Jeff Wilkinson has lived that moment — not once, but repeatedly — as the founder and CEO of two community banks he built from scratch and grew past $1 billion in assets each.

Jeff just closed the sale of Keystone Bank to Third Coast Bank in January 2026. Days before this recording, he sat in a Federal Reserve banker roundtable and told the room something that should concern every private equity firm, fund administrator, and CFO moving large amounts of money: the big banks have deliberately architected their systems to push fraud liability downstream — to community banks, to businesses, and ultimately to you. And the callback procedure everyone relies on? Voice cloning just killed it.

This is one of the most candid conversations we've had on this show. Jeff holds nothing back.

In this episode:

— Why the big banks won't pick up the phone when you need to validate a recipient account

— The $64M wire story that illustrates exactly what's broken

— How fraud is up 33% year over year — and why only 12% of it gets reported

— Why "your voice is your password" went from innovation to liability in two years

— What Jeff told the Federal Reserve about 6lock

— How hiring for fit (not for need) made Keystone more profitable faster than Pioneer

— What Jeff would do differently if he started a bank today

Chapters

00:00 Cold Open

01:00 Introduction

02:48 The Build, The Sale, and Doing It Twice

06:39 Community Banking vs. The Big Banks

19:04 Talent: Hire for Fit, Not for Need

27:44 The Banker's Inside View: Wire Fraud Is a Feature, Not a Bug

44:23 Identity Is the Answer

51:27 If You Were Starting a Bank Today

Connect with Jeff Wilkinson

LinkedIn | Keystone Bank | Third Coast Bank | Banking on Community Podcast

Questions or guest suggestions: podcast@6lock.com

What if the biggest threat to your firm's next capital call isn't a hacker — it's a nation-state intelligence operation running enterprise-grade AI?

On this episode of the 6 x 6lock Podcast, Mike Langford and Peter Steppe are joined by Vivek Ahuja, Director of FinTech & Financial Institution Partnerships at Persona — the identity verification platform that powers 6lock's KYC, KYB, and fraud prevention infrastructure.

Vivek's path to this conversation is unlike anyone else's in the space. He started as a nuclear submarine officer, went on to co-found a payments company in Southeast Asia, built fraud systems at Affirm when buy-now-pay-later had no rulebook, worked inside Marqeta, and led revenue at SentiLink — one of the country's most respected synthetic identity fraud detection companies. What he learned along the way: fraud has first principles, and most private equity firms are violating all of them.

In this episode:

• Why every new payment method creates a new fraud vector — and why AI is accelerating that cycle faster than ever
• The first principles of fraud that nobody teaches in school (because there's no PhD program for this)
• Why private equity sits at the most dangerous intersection in all of financial services: high dollar, high frequency, high urgency — and critically under-protected
• How 6lock and Persona work together to tie identity to every transaction before a dollar moves
• The shift from fooling humans to fooling the humans' AI — and what that means for agentic commerce
• Why the adversary targeting your firm isn't a teenager in a basement — it's an organized, state-sponsored operation thinking in ROI and probability of capture

Mike also references a recent episode with Stanton Ray of Columbia Threadneedle on the operational realities of moving billions in private credit — worth a listen if you haven't caught it yet.

And if you've ever been tempted to mess with a scammer who's texting you, Vivek has a word of warning. Mike references the legendary James Veitch TED Talk — funny as it is, Vivek explains exactly why engaging with bad actors, even sarcastically, is handing them data they'll use against you.

Connect with our guests: Vivek Ahuja on LinkedIn | Persona Peter Steppe on LinkedIn | 6lock

Have a question or a topic suggestion? Email us at podcast@6lock.com

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

02:30 - From Nuclear Submarines to The Fraud Lab

07:49 - First Principles of Fraud Protection

15:53 - Why Private Equity Firms Are Prime Targets for Fraud

20:17 - Identity Is the Infrastructure: How 6lock and Persona Work Together

25:10 - Are We Moving from Fooling the Human to Fooling the Human's AI?

34:24 - Nation-State Threats Are Private Equity's Problem Too