# How an Investment Consultant RFP Works for Asset Managers, Stage by Stage
What an investment consultant RFP asks of an asset manager, from the database screen and questionnaire to due diligence, finals and the committee decision, with who owns each stage and how consultants score.
An investment consultant RFP is the request for proposal that an investment consultant issues or manages on behalf of an asset owner, such as a pension plan, endowment or foundation, that is hiring an investment manager. For the asset manager, the RFP is one stage of a consultant-led manager search, which typically starts with a screen of the consultant's manager database and can continue through a questionnaire, due diligence and a finals presentation before the client's committee decides.
The same phrase also describes the RFP a plan issues to hire an investment consultant, which gets a short section near the end of this guide.
This guide is for the people at an asset manager who carry a consultant search from the first screen to the final vote: the RFP or proposal team, consultant relations, product specialists and institutional sales. It walks through each stage of the search, who owns it, how consultants score what they receive, and how to keep every stage consistent with the last.
The RFP document itself (its sections, attachments and scoring rules) is covered in the guide to the [investment management RFP](/blog/asset-management-rfp).
## What Is an Investment Consultant RFP?
An investment consultant is an adviser that an asset owner hires to shape investment policy, recommend managers and monitor them. An investment consultant RFP is the request for proposal the consultant issues or manages when one of those clients hires a manager, and in that search the consultant stands between the client and every asset manager that wants the mandate.
In a search, the consultant does most of its work before the client sees a single name. It builds the long list from its own manager database, writes or manages the questionnaire and the RFP, scores the responses, runs due diligence on the shortlist and recommends finalists. The client's committee makes the decision.
Each consultancy has its own method. Some keep ratings or an approved manager list; others start each search from their whole database. [Callan's manager search page](https://www.callan.com/rfps/), for example, says it begins every search afresh and screens every relevant manager in its database against the client's criteria.
Who runs the search changes what the asset manager meets first:
| Question | Plan-run RFP | Consultant-run search |
| ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Who writes the questions? | The plan's staff or procurement team | The consultant, working from the client's criteria |
| Where does the first information about the manager come from? | The manager's response | The consultant's manager database, before any response |
| Who reads and scores first? | The plan's evaluation team | The consultant |
| Who does the manager talk to during the search? | Whoever the notice names | Whoever the notice names |
| Who decides? | The plan's board or committee | The client's committee, normally on the consultant's recommendation |
## The Consultant-Led Manager Search, Stage by Stage
A consultant-led manager search narrows the field in stages, and each stage reuses what the asset manager said at the stage before. Seen from the asset manager's side, the institutional manager selection process usually runs through six stages, and the first one decides who is considered at all.
### 1. Database Screen
The consultant screens its manager database against the client's criteria before contacting any manager, so an asset manager whose data is missing or out of date may never enter the search. Some consultants also ask every bidder to register in their own database before they will consider a fund. Keeping the main database profiles current is the simplest way to stay in the running, and the guide to [the consultant databases managers report to](/blog/consultant-database) covers profiles, update cycles and the main databases.
### 2. Consultant Questionnaire or RFI
Before the formal RFP, the consultant often asks long-listed managers to confirm their fit through its own questionnaire or a request for information (RFI). It typically asks for minimum qualifications, required disclosures such as diversity and sustainability forms, and a short summary of the strategy and track record. Some consultants accept these at any time: [Callan's notice for a SURS real assets search](https://www.callan.com/surs-illinois-real-assets-search/), for example, takes submissions and updates throughout the year.
The consultant reads these answers next to the database data, so answer from the same facts behind the database profile, not an older fact sheet. For the writing itself, see the guide on [how to answer an RFI](/blog/rfi-response).
### 3. The RFP
The formal RFP sets out the client's mandate, minimum qualifications and deadlines, and its questions often arrive as Excel questionnaires and Word forms for the asset manager to fill in. A [New York State Deferred Compensation Board RFP for active fixed income](https://www.callan.com/new-york-state-deferred-compensation-board-active-fixed-income-rfp/), for example, attached an Excel contract questionnaire, an Excel product questionnaire and Word forms.
The minimum qualifications decide whether you can bid at all, and they usually start with regulatory status, such as registration as an investment adviser. Check them and the mandate against the strategy before committing the team, then tie each answer to the client profile rather than sending answers that could have gone to any plan.
### 4. Due Diligence and On-Site Visit
Shortlisted managers then go through the consultant's due diligence, which can include an on-site visit and an [operational due diligence review](/blog/hedge-fund-operational-due-diligence).
### 5. Finals Presentation
Finalists present to the client's board or investment committee, normally with the consultant in the room, on a date set by the committee's meeting calendar. By then the consultant has scored the written record and briefed the committee, so the presentation is judged against everything the asset manager has already submitted.
- **Rehearse against the record.** Check the deck against the RFP answers, the questionnaire and the database profile, so the team, figures, process and fees on each slide match what the consultant scored.
- **Bring the people named in the RFP,** with the portfolio manager leading on process.
- **Expect the open questions.** Team stability, the process in a hard market, fees and fit with the client's portfolio are natural places for a committee to press.
- **Close every follow-up in writing,** with one owner and a date, answered from the same approved facts.
If the deck moves to a newer quarter, say so on the slide, so its AUM does not look like a contradiction of the RFP. For structure and delivery, see the guide to [preparing an RFP finalist presentation](/blog/rfp-presentation).
### 6. Committee Decision
The client's committee votes, normally on the consultant's recommendation, and the asset manager's record carries into the next search with the same consultant. Ask for a debrief whatever the result, because it is the clearest view of how the consultant read the record.
### Who Owns Each Stage Inside the Asset Manager
Each stage of a consultant search has a natural owner inside the asset manager, and contradictions tend to appear at the handoffs between them. Consultant relations usually owns the relationship and the database profile, and the RFP or proposal team takes over when the questionnaire arrives.
| Stage | What the consultant asks for | Owner at the asset manager | What has to match the stage before |
| ------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| Database screen | Firm, strategy and performance data in its database | Consultant relations, with the performance or data team | The firm's approved facts and their as-of dates |
| Questionnaire or RFI | Fit with the mandate, qualifications and required disclosures | RFP or proposal team, with institutional sales on the go/no-go call | The database profile |
| RFP | Full answers on the firm, strategy, team, process, performance and fees | RFP or proposal team, with product specialists and portfolio managers | The questionnaire answers and the database data |
| Due diligence and on-site visit | Evidence on operations, controls and compliance | Operations and compliance | What the RFP said about operations and the team |
| Finals presentation | The team in front of the client's committee | Portfolio managers and product specialists, with institutional sales | The whole written record |
| Committee decision | Contract terms, or a debrief after a loss | Institutional sales and consultant relations | The fee proposal and the terms in the RFP |
Compliance reviews what goes out at every stage, and the performance or data team owns returns and their basis wherever they appear. Agree these owners before the search starts, so nobody answers from a private copy of last quarter's numbers.
## How Do Consultants Score Responses in Investment Manager Selection?
Consultants score each asset manager against the client's criteria and against the other managers in the same screened universe, and a common way to organize that review is around people, philosophy, process and performance. The labels vary by firm: some consultants add organization, portfolio construction or fees as headings of their own.
In investment manager selection, each of the four Ps draws on evidence from more than one stage of the search:
| Factor | What the consultant looks at | Where the asset manager's evidence sits | What a contradiction looks like |
| ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| People | Who runs the strategy, their tenure and depth, and recent changes | Database profile, RFP team answers, the finals presenters | A portfolio manager named in the RFP who has since left, or a finals team that differs from the RFP |
| Philosophy | The belief the strategy rests on, and whether it has held | RFP narrative, questionnaire answers, finals deck | A philosophy described one way in the questionnaire and another way in the deck |
| Process | How research becomes a portfolio, and how risk is controlled | RFP answers, DDQ, the on-site visit | An RFP process step the team cannot show on site |
| Performance | Returns against the benchmark, with their basis, period and as-of date | Database returns, RFP performance tables, finals deck | A figure on a different basis or as-of date from the database data |
Fees and terms are weighed alongside the four Ps, and findings from the consultant's operations and risk review feed into the final recommendation.
Consistency is itself a scoring signal. The consultant reads the RFP answer next to the database data and the questionnaire answer, so a performance figure on a different basis or as-of date invites a clarifying question. [Presenting performance with its basis and as-of date](/blog/ddq-performance-section) every time heads that question off.
What tends to lose a consultant search:
- Figures that disagree across stages, such as an AUM total or a return that changes between the questionnaire and the RFP.
- Answers that ignore the client profile and could have gone to any plan.
- Missing required disclosures, such as the diversity or sustainability forms a notice lists.
- An answer to a different question from the one asked.
A shortlist usually forms in two passes. The consultant compares managers within the screened universe, then tests the strongest against the client's fit: the mandate, the portfolio the client already holds and the fees it will accept.
## Keeping the Database Profile, RFP, DDQ and Finals Deck Consistent
Keep one approved, dated and sourced set of firm, strategy and fund facts, and answer every stage of a consultant-led manager search from it, so the consultant never finds two versions of the same number.
The facts that drift are predictable. AUM moves every quarter, so a search that spans a quarter-end can show one total in the questionnaire and another in the RFP. A departure from the investment team has to reach the database profile, the RFP and the finals deck together. Performance gets quoted on different bases, the same answer exists in a strategy version and a vehicle version, and fee schedules change between the proposal and finals.
Four habits hold the record together:
- **One owner and one as-of date for each fact,** so everyone knows which AUM figure is current and who changes it.
- **Strategy-specific answers kept apart,** so a composite figure never lands in a fund-level question.
- **Compliance approval before reuse,** so an answer cleared for one consultant is safe to send to the next.
- **The database profile updated from the same approved facts** the team uses to answer the RFP, by the consultant relations team that owns it.
For asset managers answering consultant searches, AutoRFP.ai drafts each questionnaire, RFP and follow-up DDQ answer only from content the firm has approved, shows the source behind every answer, and routes any question that content cannot support to a person, so the answers at each of those stages draw on one set of approved facts.
The consultant's own Excel or Word questionnaire comes into AutoRFP.ai as sent, and the finished answers go back into the same cells and paragraphs of that original file. Each draft also carries a Trust Score, which shows how strongly the approved content supports it, so compliance and product specialists start with the answers that need them most.
Firms including Partners Group and HEPTAGON Capital use AutoRFP.ai for DDQs, as shown on the page about [DDQ and RFP response software for asset managers](/ddq-response-software). If you are still choosing a tool, the [comparison of RFP and DDQ software for asset managers](/blog/best-rfp-software-for-asset-managers) sets the options side by side.
## When a Plan Issues an RFP to Hire a Consultant
When a pension plan, endowment or foundation hires an investment consultant, it issues its own RFP and the consultants become the responders.
These RFPs usually set minimum eligibility requirements first: registration as an investment adviser, a minimum number of years in business, a minimum level of experience for the lead consultant, agreement to act as a fiduciary to the plan, and full disclosure of conflicts of interest. The process then mirrors a manager search from the other side: written questions, proposals scored against stated criteria, finalist presentations to the investment committee and a negotiated contract.
Colorado PERA's 2025 search is one public example. The Public Employees' Retirement Association of Colorado [announced its RFP for investment consulting services](https://www.copera.org/news/investment-consultant-rfp) in April 2025, and its [outline of the RFP process](https://content.copera.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/outline-of-minimum-eligibility-requirements-and-RFP-process.pdf) asked for at least five years in business and a lead consultant with at least seven years of investment consulting experience. Finalist presentations were planned for October 2025, with selection in the fourth quarter.
## Where to Start Before the Next Consultant Search
Start with the database and the approved fact set, because a consultant-led manager search can screen the asset manager out before anyone sends an RFP.
1. Check that the database data and the approved facts agree, including every as-of date.
2. Name an owner for each stage, from the database profile to the finals deck.
3. Build or tidy the approved answers the questionnaire, RFP and DDQ will draw from.
When the RFP itself lands, the hub guide walks through [the end-to-end response process for asset management RFPs](/blog/asset-management-rfp).