Billion Dollar Backstory

Let's talk about conference season.
You showed up and collected a gazillion business cards. You smiled until your face hurt. And three days later you got home, looked at that stack of business cards, and thought… now what?

If that sounds familiar, this Story Snack is for you.

In this episode, Stacy breaks down why conferences tend to feel like a huge waste of time. 
She’s sharing what she’s learned over the years about what it actually takes to make a conference worth your time. 
Listen in to learn: 
What most people get backwards about conference ROI
The pre-work that changes who you meet (and how those meetings feel)
How to turn “great meeting you” into “let’s keep talking”
Why doing less on-site and more upfront is the move
This is Story Snacks, a bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week.

---
Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus
- - -
Thinking about expanding your investor base beyond the US? Not sure where to start? Take our quick quiz to find out if your firm is ready to go global and get all the info at billiondollarbackstory.com/gemcap

Shannon is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer for Wealth at Neuberger Berman, a firm with north of AUM, and she's spent years on the other side of the table, sitting through roughly 300 manager meetings a year. She knows exactly what earns credibility fast. And she knows exactly what kills it.

In this episode, Stacy Havener sits down with Shannon to pull back the curtain on what allocators are actually looking for,  and why the managers who win aren't the ones performing. They're the ones listening.

Because the real answers don't come out when you're trying to sound smart, they come out when you're genuinely trying to understand. And the questions you ask say a lot more about you than the vocabulary you use.
Shannon also gets into what it actually means to build solutions from real client problems instead of copying the industry playbook and why a $560B firm can still feel boutique when the mindset is right.
Listen in to hear:
Why courage almost always precedes confidence 
What 300 manager meetings a year taught her about what allocators really care about 
How she asks questions that make people drop the script 
Why focusing on trying to sound smart backfires for PMs in meetings 
Why complexity bias can quietly hurt your distribution 
What allocators mean when they say "help us help you" 
 Why simple, repeatable messaging wins,  especially when someone else has to retell your story

More About Shannon Saccocia:

Shannon Saccocia, CFA, is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer for Wealth at Neuberger Berman, a global investment manager with north of $560B AUM. As a member of the firm's global Asset Allocation Committee, she works closely with investment leadership to establish market views, strategic and tactical asset allocation, and portfolio recommendations for Wealth clients.

Before joining Neuberger Berman in 2023, Shannon served as Chief Investment Officer at SVB Private and Boston Private Wealth, overseeing portfolio construction, manager selection, and asset allocation. She has also held senior roles at Banyan Partners and Silver Bridge Advisors focused on manager selection and portfolio construction.
Shannon holds a BA in Economics and History from Brandeis University and has earned both the CFA and CIMA® designations. She is a longtime CNBC contributor and is regularly featured across financial media. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two children.

---
Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus
- - -
Thinking about expanding your investor base beyond the US? Not sure where to start? Take our quick quiz to find out if your firm is ready to go global and get all the info at billiondollarbackstory.com/gemcap

What do a Notre Dame finance degree, a brief detour into ninth-grade teaching, a Merrill Lynch internship, and 20 years at BlackRock have in common?

They’re all plot twists on the road to finding exactly where you belong.

In this episode, Stacy sits down with Ellen Bockius, Head of Business Development & Marketing at JLAM, a boutique real estate investment firm focused on the Mid-Atlantic coast, an area big institutional money often overlooks.
Ellen shares what it’s like to build a career by raising your hand and moving across businesses… and then suddenly have the “scaffolding” that held your career together at a big shop disappear. She doesn’t gloss over that chapter. She walks right into it.

Listen in to learn:
How Ellen went from “maybe I’m meant to be a teacher” to getting recruited into BlackRock (back when it wasn’t a household name)
What it was like to be a right-brained creative in a sea of left-brained people at BlackRock 
What happens when the company that felt like your identity is suddenly no longer part of your story 
Why moving from a big shop to a boutique is harder than people think 
JLAM’s edge: operating experience + overlooked secondary/tertiary markets where big funds won’t even pick up the phone

This one is for anyone who’s ever wondered if the push they didn’t ask for might actually be the gift they needed.

More about Ellen Bockius:

Ellen Bockius is the Director of Business Development & Marketing at JLAM, where she leads investor relations, capital raising, and strategic partnerships. She previously spent 20+ years at BlackRock in senior marketing and client leadership roles, including Managing Director and Head of Institutional Client Marketing. 

A native Delawarean and proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Ellen is also deeply committed to education and community service. She serves on the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington School Board and has been actively involved in various industry and philanthropic organizations. When she’s not helping shape the future of JLAM, she’s raising four incredible children with her husband, Troy, her most rewarding and fast-paced role yet. 

---
Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus
- - -
Thinking about expanding your investor base beyond the US? Not sure where to start? Take our quick quiz to find out if your firm is ready to go global and get all the info at billiondollarbackstory.com/gemcap

What if the questions you ask say more about you than the answers you give?
Two weeks before graduating from college, Buffy Alegria walked into a bank job interview knowing basically nothing about banking. 
But she did walk in with four pages of questions on a yellow legal pad.
They hired her before she finished the first page.
That moment set the tone for everything that came after.
Today, Buffy is the co-founder of Loud Ventures, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm built on a simple (and kind of radical) belief:
The traditional VC model was designed for tech, and Healthcare doesn’t play by those rules.
After years in commercial banking, negotiating remote work way before it was normal, raising a women’s health fund entirely virtually during COVID, serving on a rural health board for more than a decade, and learning firsthand (as a patient) what happens when systems break down… Buffy and her co-founder Navin decided to build something different…
Venture capital for healthcare, by healthcare.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
The interview move that changed her trajectory (and why four pages of questions is a power play)

How she negotiated remote work postpartum before remote work was a thing

What it was really like raising a women’s health fund as a first-time manager… on Zoom… during COVID

Why “underserved” isn’t a buzzword at Loud Ventures (women’s health + rural health as a serious lens, not a niche)

What it actually means to be loud and active beyond the check

A real-world example of innovation meeting reality: pediatric anesthesia in dental offices, reimbursement pathways, and why “great idea” isn’t enough

Buffy’s diligence philosophy: why qualitative signals like curiosity and adaptability can matter more than early numbers

If you’re building in healthcare (or allocating to it), this one will make you think differently about what “good” looks like.

More about Buffy Alegria:
Buffy Alegria doesn't just invest in healthcare: she's lived it. From the NICU to the boardroom, her path through banking, women's health venture, and hospital governance taught her that real progress takes more than a check.
As Managing Partner of LOUD Ventures, she’s proving that healthcare venture can be done differently by building alongside founders with capital, clinical depth, and operational grit. 
 
When she's not building the future of healthcare, she's skiing, hiking, or water skiing in the Pacific Northwest with her two dogs. Oh, and wearing her newest hat: dedicated college campus road-tripper cheering on her athlete daughters.

---
Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus
- - -
Thinking about expanding your investor base beyond the US? Not sure where to start? Take our quick quiz to find out if your firm is ready to go global and get all the info at billiondollarbackstory.com/gemcap

What if the secret to building a firm people know, like, and trust wasn’t a slicker pitch deck… or a better track record?
What if it was the audacity to just be yourself?
Sweta Singh didn't wonder. She just built it.
Before she was a founder, she was on the other side of the desk entirely, issuing bonds for the State of New York, watching how public money moves through communities, hospitals, schools, and retirement funds. Most portfolio managers never see that side. Sweta did. And she never forgot it.
Twenty-five years later — Wellington, Income Research, Thornburg — she took the leap. City Different is what happened next.

In this episode, Stacy Havener sits down with Sweta to talk boutique building, muni bonds, and why being "boring" in the right part of the portfolio is actually the goal. 
Listen in to hear: 
Sweta’s backstory – From India to full scholarship to Albany bond issuer 
How she got hooked on finance (and why the policy/markets/human behavior collision lit her up)
What issuing bonds before managing them taught her about how muni debt connects to real voters, real communities, and real consequences
The City Different origin story: why the name is a love letter to Santa Fe (and a reminder to stay different)

More about Sweta Singh:

Sweta Singh is a fixed-income portfolio manager and co-founder of City Different Investments, with more than 25 years of industry experience. Her desire to constantly learn and adapt has been her greatest gift, and the thread that connects every chapter of her career.
After immigrating to the U.S. and earning degrees from the University of Massachusetts (summa cum laude), the University of Texas at Austin, where she was awarded the Barbara Jordan Fellowship, and SUNY, she began her career in New York State's Debt Division, learning every aspect of bond issuance from the ground up.
That other-side-of-the-desk foundation carried her through roles at Wellington Management, Income Research and Management, Breckinridge Capital Advisors, Thornburg Investment Management, and Wilkins Investment Counsel, building expertise across municipal bonds, corporate credit, agencies, and treasuries along the way.

Sweta believes investing is dynamic and that its future belongs to the best of both human and machine. It's a belief she brings to life every day at City Different Investments.

---
Running a fund is hard enough.
Ops shouldn’t be.
Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus
- - -
Thinking about expanding your investor base beyond the US? Not sure where to start? Take our quick quiz to find out if your firm is ready to go global and get all the info at billiondollarbackstory.com/gemcap