Episode summary
Why Tax Is Moving Upstream in Institutional Investing | Dave Sekula, CEO of GTM
Dakota Live!
· · 44 min · Hosts: Robert Morier · Guests: Dave Sekula
Summary
Tax is moving from a back-office compliance function into the investment process itself, especially as portfolios become more private, more global, and more operationally complex. Dave Sekula argued that allocators, OCIOs, asset managers, and multi-manager platforms now need to think about tax alongside risk, liquidity, and return because what matters is not just performance, but what clients actually keep after tax.
Sekula described GTM as a large independent corporate tax provider focused on direct tax work for public and private companies, and said the firm sees demand from asset managers, private equity, venture firms, and high-net-worth owners. He emphasized that GTM’s edge is speed, cost effectiveness, and continuity, with long client relationships and a co-sourced model that helps firms handle surge needs, seasonal work, and specialized tax problems.
The conversation also focused on leadership and transformation inside GTM: employee ownership, servant leadership, talent development, and the use of AI and automation. Sekula said routine tasks are being automated first, but firms still need human judgment, strong process discipline, and outside consultants to manage change, especially as new rules, tax reporting proposals, and global compliance demands keep shifting.
Key takeaways
- Dave Sekula said tax is moving upstream because institutions now treat after-tax outcomes as part of investment decision-making, not a post-trade cleanup.
- Sekula said GTM targets asset managers, private equity firms, venture capital firms, and high-net-worth owners as growth markets.
- He said GTM’s main advantages are speed, lower cost, and continuity from a high-retention, employee-owned model.
- Sekula said AI should automate routine checks first, but firms still need human judgment, client-specific controls, and outside expertise.
- He said clients are most often blindsided by resource constraints, weak process controls, and underinvestment in technology.
Notable quotes
“tax is no longer downstream, it's upstream”
“performance is one thing, but what you keep, that's the real scorecard”
“one of the things I think that if you're in a business that has high turnover, clients face that, you face that, business suffers, morale suffers”
“you can't ignore it. You got to you got to have a strategy. You got to start moving forward”
How the episode opens
We spend a lot of time in the industry talking about generating returns. Manager selection, asset allocation, access edge. But there's a quieter question that doesn't get nearly enough airtime.
How much of those returns do you actually keep? Because somewhere between a great investment decision and the final distribution to a client, there's a layer that can either preserve value or quietly erode it. Tax.
not as a compliance exercise, not as a once- a year event, but as an embedded part of how portfolios are built, structured, and ultimately realized. And as portfolios have evolved, more private markets, more global exposure, more complex structures, that layer has gone from background noise to something much closer to determining outcomes. For allocators, for outsourced CIOS, for asset managers, anyone operating in a multi-manager world, tax is no longer downstream, it's upstream.
Today's conversation is about that shift. What it looks like when tax moves from the back office into the investment process where allocators get caught off guard and why some of the most sophisticated institutions are starting to treat tax the same way they treat risk, liquidity, and return. Because at the end of the day, performance is one thing, but what you keep, that's the real scorecard.
Welcome to the Dakota Live podcast. I'm your host, Robert Morier. The goal of this podcast is to help you better know the people behind investment decisions.
We introduce you to chief investment officers, chief executive officers, manager research professionals, and other industry leaders to help you sell in between the lines and better understand the investment sales ecosystem. If you're not familiar with Dakota and our Dakota Live content, please visit our website at dakota.com. Before we get started, I need to read a brief disclosure.
This content is provided forformational purposes and should not be relied upon as recommendations or advice about investing in securities.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- tax strategy
- institutional investing
- tax technology automation
- ai in corporate tax workflows
- after-tax outcomes tax-loss harvesting
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Global Tax Management
- GTM
Watch the episode
Watch “Why Tax Is Moving Upstream in Institutional Investing | Dave Sekula, CEO of GTM” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Dakota Live!, this episode and its artwork belong to Robert Morier. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
