Why Most Firms Miss on Alts: It’s NOT the Product, It’s the Plumbing

Welcome to The Private Markets Playbook, a podcast for wealth advisors and CIOs navigating portfolios beyond the traditional 60/40. Hosted by Allocate, the show features candid conversations with allocators, asset managers, and industry leaders on building modern, programmatic portfolios—spanning private markets, portfolio construction, and the systems required to manage complexity at scale.

In this episode, Samir Kaji sits down with Raj Bhattacharyya and Stuart Katz of Robertson Stephens to unpack how they rebuilt an iconic Wall Street brand into a $9B, tech-forward wealth management firm focused on high and ultra-high net worth clients. They walk through the firm’s four pillars of fiduciary alignment, centralized investments, integrated planning, and technology, and how that framework shapes their approach to private markets and alternatives. The conversation dives into what it means to use alts as a purposeful “program” rather than a shiny product, how to size and structure illiquid exposures so they support (rather than derail) a client’s plan, and why advisor and client education around liquidity, the J-curve, and manager dispersion is non-negotiable. Along the way, they explore the operational plumbing required to scale alts, the risks of country club deals and fee-stacked SPVs, and how agentic AI is beginning to transform research, operations, and the client experience, enhancing, but not replacing, the advisor’s judgment as wealth management moves into an increasingly digital and choice-saturated future.

Topics in this conversation include:

* Origins of Rebuilding Robertson Stevens as a Pure Wealth Management Firm (2:37)

* Entrepreneurial DNA of the Firm and Empathy for Founders and Advisors (6:51)

* Purposeful Use of Alternatives and Theme-Driven Investment Process (9:30)

* Integrating Planning, Liquidity, and Client Temperament with Alternatives (14:24)

* When to Use Alternatives, Importance of Simplicity, and Sizing by Suitability (16:28)

* Return Targets, Dispersion Across Managers, and Internal Hurdle Framework (23:49)

* Advisor Discomfort with Alts and Building Consistent Education and Support (27:37)

* Technology as a Core Pillar and Crossing the Threshold to Time-Saving Tools (36:36)

* Agentic AI in the Investment Office as an Analyst Layer to Enhance Judgment (43:57)