What Is a Consultant Database, and How Do Investment Consultants Use eVestment to Screen Asset Managers?

A consultant database is an online platform where asset managers publish their performance, holdings, assets under management and written answers about the firm and its strategies, so that investment consultants and asset owners can screen managers before a search reaches the RFP stage. Nasdaq eVestment is one; Mercer, Callan and Cambridge Associates run their own, and the same platforms are also called investment manager databases. A manager that is missing from a database, or whose profile is out of date, can be screened out before any RFP is sent.

For an asset manager, that screen is the first step of the full asset-management RFP process. Every shortlist, and every RFP that follows it, starts from what the investment manager database already holds about the firm.

This guide covers where a consultant database sits in a manager search, what goes into a profile, what eVestment is, which consultancy databases matter, who should own each update, and how to keep the written answers consistent with the RFPs and DDQs the same consultants send later.

Where Consultant Databases Fit in a Manager Search

A consultant database is the first screen in a consultant-led manager search: the consultant filters the managers in its database against the client’s criteria before anyone is invited to answer an RFP.

Callan says it begins every search by checking all managers in the relevant asset class against what the client asked for, and it calls submitting data “the first necessary step” for a manager to be included in a Callan search (Callan, March 20, 2018).

Asset owners screen the same databases directly. Nasdaq says asset owners use what it calls database “shadow searching” to pick managers, and tells managers they need to spot opportunities before they are formally announced (Nasdaq eVestment for asset managers, as of November 2026).

In practice, an asset manager can be shortlisted, or ruled out, before it knows a search exists.

The strategies that pass the screen are then compared with peers in the same universe. An incomplete profile therefore costs a manager almost as much as a missing one, and some consultant RFPs ask outright whether the manager’s database profile is up to date.

After the screen, a search usually moves through a questionnaire or RFI, the RFP, due diligence and finals. The consultant RFP guide walks through the stages of a consultant-led manager search in order.

What Do Asset Managers Submit to a Consultant Database?

Asset managers submit two kinds of content to a consultant database: the numbers (performance, holdings, assets and flows) and the written answers about the firm, the strategy and its policies.

The Numbers

• Returns by strategy and vehicle, gross and net of fees, back to inception.
• Holdings and portfolio characteristics, such as top positions, sector weights and exposures.
• Assets under management and flows, split by strategy, vehicle and client type.
• Fees and vehicle terms, such as the fee schedule, minimum account size and liquidity terms.

Nasdaq says eVestment requires, at a minimum, since-inception performance for each product before the product can appear in its global database (eVestment data collection process, as of November 2026).

The Written Answers

• Firm profile: ownership, history, offices, headcount, key people and recent changes.
• Strategy profile: philosophy, research process, portfolio construction, risk management, sell discipline and capacity.
• ESG and stewardship: the responsible investment policy, proxy voting and engagement.
• Diversity and inclusion: team composition and the policies behind it.
• Compliance and regulatory history: registrations, regulatory exams, litigation and material breaches.

Nasdaq says it built eVestment’s manager questionnaire with leading consultants, and that the resulting dataset holds more than 2,800 data points, qualitative and quantitative, that users can search (eVestment data collection process, as of November 2026).

Large database questionnaires often come back each cycle pre-filled with the previous answers, plus new questions. Every pre-filled answer still needs checking, because a stale answer looks just as complete as a current one.

Why Net-of-Fee Returns Matter Under the SEC Marketing Rule

Nasdaq’s Marketing Rule FAQ (October 13, 2023) says that, in some circumstances, what a manager communicates through the eVestment database may count as “advertisements” under the SEC Marketing Rule.

For SEC-registered advisers, that can bring the performance numbers in a database profile under the rule’s conditions. The SEC’s Marketing Compliance FAQ quotes rule 206(4)-1(d)(1), which bars an advertisement from including “any presentation of gross performance, unless the advertisement also presents net performance,” with conditions on prominence, time period and methodology.

A sensible house style is to submit net returns wherever gross returns appear. Nasdaq strongly advises its clients to take their own legal advice on their obligations, and whether a given profile counts as an advertisement is for your compliance team to decide.

What Is eVestment?

Nasdaq eVestment, usually shortened to eVestment, is Nasdaq’s institutional investment data and analytics platform, where asset managers publish data on their strategies and investment consultants and asset owners research, benchmark and screen managers.

Nasdaq describes eVestment as its “institutional intelligence platform where asset managers, consultants, and allocators connect, compete, and grow” (Nasdaq eVestment, as of November 2026).

Nasdaq has owned eVestment since 2017. It announced the acquisition on September 5, 2017 and completed it on October 23, 2017.

For asset managers, eVestment is where the database profile lives. Nasdaq’s Submit My Data page says managers who register get complimentary access, and a data specialist then guides them through the submission (as of November 2026).

For investment consultants and asset owners, eVestment is a screening and research tool. Nasdaq says more than 1,000 asset owners and intermediaries use eVestment to screen managers (Nasdaq eVestment for asset managers, as of November 2026).

Nasdaq says it also keeps an in-house data team that chases managers for updates after each reporting period closes (eVestment data collection process, as of November 2026). Alongside the database, Nasdaq lists products such as Peer Benchmarking and Holdings Analysis (Nasdaq eVestment, as of November 2026).

Mercer, Callan and Cambridge Associates Databases

Beyond eVestment, the large investment consultancies run their own manager databases, and the consultants a manager’s target clients use decide which ones it has to keep current.

Each row below is described from its owner’s own page.

The same firm, team and process questions recur across every one of these databases, each in its own format and on its own deadline.

Who Owns Consultant Database Updates, and When Are They Due?

Consultant database upkeep splits into two jobs with different owners and clocks: the numbers belong to the performance or data team and run on each database’s post-quarter deadline, and the written answers belong with the team that owns RFP and DDQ content and change whenever the firm does.

Split the work this way:

The eVestment calendar shows why the deadline matters. Nasdaq says eVestment emails traditional managers for updates in the weeks after each quarter end, and alternative managers after each month end, and may also ask a manager directly to update its data within a set time frame (eVestment data collection process, as of November 2026).

On the same page, Nasdaq says that, on average, its database is 80% populated for traditional strategies within eight or nine business days of quarter end, and for hedge funds within 20 to 22 business days of month end (eVestment data collection process, as of November 2026).

Peer numbers arrive early, so a late profile gets screened beside current ones.

The quarterly firm statistics that also feed DDQs, such as firm assets, headcount and their as-of dates, should come from the same approved source as the database numbers. A data team that already keeps one approved performance block per quarter for DDQs can feed every database submission from that same block.

Pro tip: keep one register of every consultant database the firm appears in, with its deadline and the person who holds the login, and replace any preliminary figures with final ones as soon as the books close.

Data entry can go to an outsourced provider, and ownership of the content still stays inside the firm, because the firm answers for what is submitted under its name.

Database Profile vs Consultant RFP vs DDQ

A consultant database profile is standing information that every consultant on the platform can screen, a consultant RFP asks for answers to one search, and a due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) tests the firm’s operations and controls before money moves.

The database profile is the one document a consultant can read before the firm knows it is being considered.

The same consultant often sees all three, so a team change that reached the RFP but never reached the database profile is exactly the contradiction a consultant notices. Hedge fund managers meet the same overlap in the AIMA DDQ, the industry template many of them receive.

Keeping Database Answers Consistent With RFPs and DDQs

Keep every written answer in one approved, dated and sourced library and fill the database questionnaire, the consultant’s RFP and the DDQ from it, while the numbers keep coming from the data team’s own systems.

Done by hand, that usually means a master questionnaire per database, kept in documents or spreadsheets. The copies drift apart, and a consultant database does not update itself when the firm’s internal library changes.

The questions that recur across a database profile, an RFP and a DDQ are predictable: ownership, team and key people, investment process, risk management, ESG policy and compliance history.

A shared library gives each written answer an owner, a source and a review date. A change is approved once, then reused in the next database update, the next RFP and the next DDQ. The guide to keeping a response library governed and current covers the ownership and review rules behind it.

AutoRFP.ai drafts the written answers for a consultant database questionnaire, a consultant RFP and a DDQ from the same content your team has approved, shows the source behind each answer, and routes any question the library cannot support to the person assigned to it.

AutoRFP.ai saves each answer your team approves for reuse, so the next quarter’s database update starts from the latest approved wording.

The performance, holdings and asset figures stay with the data team and its systems, and AutoRFP.ai drafts the written answers around them, each from approved content with its source shown. See how that works in AutoRFP.ai for DDQs and investor questionnaires, or compare RFP and DDQ tools for asset managers before choosing one.

What to Do Before the Next Consultant Database Update

Start with a list of every consultant database the firm appears in, then check each profile against the answers the firm’s RFP and DDQ library already holds.

Run these checks before each database’s deadline.

Once the profiles are current, the next job is answering the RFP that follows the screen.