Dakota Live! Podcast Inside a Single Family Office: How CIOs Allocate Capital, Select Managers, and Think Long-Term
5 snips
Jan 21, 2026 
Stephanie Szymanski, CIO at Lakeview Capital Management and seasoned family office allocator, discusses portfolio construction, manager selection, and balancing public and private markets. She covers why family offices act differently than institutions, how they vet and narrow managers, the roles of hedge funds and private equity, and practical hiring and team lessons. Short, candid, practitioner-level conversation.
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Network Before Database Searches
- Start manager searches by networking and triangulating peer references before deep database screens.
- Use cap-intro channels and third-party marketers to surface relevant managers.
Prefer Single-Strategy Managers
- Prefer managers focused on one strategy to avoid strategy proliferation and attention dilution.
- Treat multi-strategy firms skeptically and check whether new strategies reflect genuine research or asset gathering.
Flexible, Committee-Guided Due Diligence
- Lakeview uses a flexible, checklist-driven DD process rather than rigid RFP counts for manager selection.
- Investment committee questioning often extends processes or reveals risks that change decisions.
