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

Alex Du dropped out of Stanford GSB five months before graduation to become employee #1 at Column. Six years later, he's COO of a nationally chartered bank that's rebuilding banking infrastructure from scratch.

In this episode, Alex and Todd Sorrel (CEO of 6lock) dive deep into what it takes to build a championship culture in an industry that's never been known for it. From owning 100% of your infrastructure stack to understanding why that 0.001% of edge case payments creates 90% of the value, this conversation is essential listening for anyone building in fintech or serving private markets.

Topics covered:

• Why Alex left Stanford 5 months before graduation
• The TAM + Team + Problem framework for early-stage companies
• How Column bought a bank and rebuilt the core from scratch
• Building championship culture: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner"
• The 0.001% game — why edge cases create all the value in payments
• Column's approach to AI in banking infrastructure

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

02:50 - The Stanford Dropout Story: When Plaid's Co-Founder Calls, You Show Up

09:44 - No One Likes Their Banking Partner And That's a Huge Opportunity 12:51 - Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

32:29 - Why Column Had to Own the Entire Stack

42:16 - The 0.001% Game: Why All the Value in Payments Lives in the Edge Cases

48:57 - How is Column Approaching AI?

What is finance, really? Britt Harris gave an unforgettable answer on the Scholars of Finance podcast — finance isn’t the most important industry, but it is the lifeblood of every other one. That idea kicks off one of the most wide-ranging, wisdom-packed conversations in 6 × 6lock Podcast history.

Britt Harris is the founder of On Eagles Wings Advisors and a 6lock advisor. He is the only investor in the world to have served as CIO or CEO for a top-5 fund in all four major investment categories: endowments (UTIMCO, $68B), public funds (Teacher Retirement System of Texas, $155B), private/hedge funds (Bridgewater Associates), and corporate funds (Verizon Investment Management). He has mentored 1,100+ students through his Titans of Investing program at Texas A&M and UT Austin, collectively launching 43 companies worth $6 billion.

In this episode, Britt, host Mike Langford, and 6lock CEO Todd Sorrel cover:

• Why the trust culture of private markets has quietly become its biggest security vulnerability

• Why money movement is still stuck in the telegraph era — and what it will take to change it

• What LPs of the future are going to demand from their GPs

• The “Success to Significance” framework: why the second half of a career is more important than the first

• The Three Cheeseburger Life Plan — Britt’s surprisingly practical framework for a full life

• Why Britt — after 40 years in the industry — put his name behind 6lock

Britt also shares the story directly from his time running UTIMCO: capital calls were arriving at 10x, even 100x, the expected amounts — and the industry had no reliable way to verify where the money was actually going. That unsolvable problem is exactly why 6lock exists.

The lifeblood quote that opened this episode came from Britt’s appearance on the Scholars of Finance podcast with @scholarsoffinance911. Watch that episode to hear more of Britt’s perspective on the purpose of finance.

CHAPTERS

00:00 — Intro & Teaser

02:28 — The Ethos of Finance Being: The Lifeblood of All Industries

10:49 — The Handshake Economy: How Trust Became a Risk for Private Markets

18:24 — Money Movement in Private Markets Is Stuck in the Telegraph Era

28:19 — What the LP of the Future Is Going to Demand from Their GPs

36:13 — Success to Significance: What the Second Half of a Career Is Really For

42:17 — The Three Cheeseburger Life Plan

48:15 — BONUS: A Principled Approach to Business

CONNECT & LEARN MORE

🔗 Learn more about 6lock: 6lock.com

💼 Learn more about On Eagles Wings Advisors: oewadvisors.com

📧 Questions or suggestions for the show: podcast@6lock.com

🎬 Britt on the Scholars of Finance podcast: Watch here

When everyone told Oliver Freigang that automating waterfall calculations was impossible, he saw an opportunity.

After his employer rejected the idea, Oliver and his co-founder Gregor bet their own money that they could solve one of private markets' most complex-and most broken-problems. That bet became Qashqade, a Swiss fintech now protecting billions in fund distributions from the kind of errors that keep CFOs up at night.

The shocking reality: Between 80-95% of complex Excel spreadsheets contain errors (KPMG study). When you're calculating who gets paid what from a billion-dollar fund exit, even a small error can mean millions going to the wrong people.

IN THIS EPISODE:

Oliver shares the origin story of building Qashqade after being told it wasn't possible, drops the stat that should make every GP and fund administrator pause, and explains why both Excel AND AI fall short when billions are on the line.

We cover:

• Why industry giants said waterfall automation was impossible-and what happened when Oliver proved them wrong
• The real $6 million error that KPMG missed (yes, a major fund administrator)
• Why Excel, the backbone of private markets for decades, is finally meeting its match
• What happens when you try to hand waterfall calculations to AI (spoiler: 4% hallucination on $10 billion = $400 million in potential errors)
• How the finish line handshake works between Qashqade's calculations and 6lock's verified money movement
• Oliver's vision to become the global standard for waterfall calculations

CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Cold Open: The KPMG Error Rate Study

03:40 - The Qashqade Origin Story: They Said It Was Impossible

12:14 - The Problem: Excel, Error, and the Billion-Dollar Spreadsheet

24:39 - How It Works: Automated Waterfalls and Why Complexity Is Your Friend

34:11 - The AI Question: Can ChatGPT Do Your Waterfall?

46:41 - The Full Money Movement Stack: From Calculation to Secure Movement

52:36 - The Vision: Making Qashqade the Global Standard

The private credit market has exploded to over $4 trillion in assets — but the infrastructure behind it hasn't kept pace. Most firms are still moving billions of dollars using the same manual, high-risk processes that were built for a much smaller, slower market.

On this episode of 6 × 6lock, hosts Mike Langford and Todd Sorrel (CEO & Co-Founder, 6lock) sit down with Stanton Ray, Head of the US Loan Platform and Senior Portfolio Manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, to explore what it actually takes to operate a $4 billion loan platform in today's private credit landscape — and why the operational infrastructure gap is both a vulnerability and an opportunity.

From his early days in Gun Barrel City, Texas, to the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M (where he met Todd), to building a $2.5 billion CLO business at Carlson Capital over 22 years, Stanton brings rare insight into how private credit markets actually work behind the scenes.

In this episode they cover:•

• The three distinct markets within private credit (high yield, syndicated loans, and true private credit) — and why they're converging fast
• How CLOs revolutionized lending by solving the duration mismatch problem that nearly broke the banking system — and why they now own 65% of the loan market
• Where the smart money is flowing in the AI infrastructure boom: off-balance-sheet data center financing, utility investments, and the unexpected winners in the AI value chain
• Why software company loans dropped 10 points after Claude Code launched — and what that signals about AI's market impact
• The hidden operational cost of moving $4 billion manually: 300+ quarterly payments, 10-20 daily trades, all settled over the counter without modern infrastructure
• Why geopolitical uncertainty freezes private market deal flow — and what that means for capital deployment in 2026

Whether you're a GP, LP, fund administrator, CFO, or treasury professional, this episode offers a rare look inside the operational realities of private credit — and why the infrastructure modernization gap is one of the most under appreciated risks in the market today.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open: Moving Billions Manually

03:37 From Texas to Manhattan Beach — Who is Stanton Ray?

09:49 The Private Credit Landscape — Three Distinct Markets

17:41 The CLO Revolution — How Wall Street Solved the Duration Problem

23:23 The AI Infrastructure Play — Where Smart Money Flows

32:07 The Hidden Cost of Moving $4 Billion — The Operational Nightmare

36:36 Why Private Credit Markets Prefer Stability

The threat landscape for private markets has changed — dramatically and fast. And the firms that don't realize it yet are the ones most at risk.

On this episode of 6 x 6lock, host Mike Langford and Peter Steppe, Chief Security Officer at 6lock are joined by Stacey Cameron, CISO at Halcyon — former Information Systems Security Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, founder of CyCam Strategies — for one of the most important conversations we've had on the show.

Stacey and Peter pull back the curtain on how today's threat actors have evolved from breaking into systems to simply blending in — exploiting the trusted processes, familiar voices, and routine workflows that private markets firms have relied on for decades.

In this episode they cover:

• Why perimeter defenses and one-time identity checks are no longer enough
• How AI has lowered the barrier for fraud to near zero — and what $200M+ in Q1 2025 financial fraud losses tells us about where this is heading
• Why voice cloning is a far bigger threat than deepfake video — and how attackers can clone your voice from as little as three to five seconds of audio
• The difference between authentication and true transactional integrity, and why it matters for every capital call and distribution event
• Real-world attack patterns security professionals are seeing right now, including long-dwell reconnaissance attacks timed specifically to money movement events
• Why security, done right, is a business accelerator — not a blocker

Stacey and Peter also share the mindset shift that every private markets firm needs to make today: stop assuming your transactions are safe, and start planning as if compromise is already in the process.

Read the co-authored white paper: Enhancing Transactional Security in Private Markets

Chapters:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:03:25 Today's Threat Environment

00:12:32 Why The System Is Breaking

00:18:55 Transactional Integrity: Where Identity Meets Money

00:25:49 Deepfakes, AI, and the New Attack Surface

00:32:21 What Security Officers Are Actually Seeing

00:38:13 Putting Brakes on the Race Car to Go Faster