How Top Investment Consultants Pick Managers | The Future of Due Diligence with Callan

Join Dakota Live! as we sit down with senior leaders from one of the largest investment consultants in North America, Callan, for a deep dive into private markets, hedge funds, and their process behind manager selection.

Ashley Kahn leads private equity manager research at Callan. Her work lives at that intersection of pattern recognition, judgment, and repetition, seeing enough deals to know what’s real and what’s just a good story.

Tony Lissuzzo sits on the other side of the table as an investment consultant, working directly with endowments and foundations on portfolio construction. Before Callan, he spent time at Cambridge Associates and Northern Trust, including managing alternative investment portfolios. 

This episode starts in the classroom at Drexel University but quickly moves into the investment committee.

Over 10 weeks, students were asked to do what typically takes years to learn:
Underwrite real asset managers. Build conviction. Make a call.

What emerged was something bigger—
a real-time apprenticeship in investment judgment.

In this conversation, we explore how top allocators and consultants actually make decisions:
● How private equity and venture capital managers are evaluated (and why access matters)
● What separates great hedge fund managers in today’s more efficient markets
● The role of pattern recognition, judgment, and qualitative edge in due diligence
● Why portfolio construction in private markets is as much art as science
● How allocators think about risk (illiquidity + leverage) in today’s environment
● The importance of client fit, partnership mindset, and long-term conviction
● What students (and professionals) get wrong about manager selection

Lean how decisions get made, how managers are evaluated, and how judgment is built over time.