About — Ascend Executive Presence

Why we built this

We spent decades in the rooms where promotion decisions get made. Engineering leadership across four continents. Investment banking. Asset management. Fortune 500 boardrooms and privately held firms across electronics, automotive, defense, and financial services. Across every industry and every level, we kept seeing the same thing: the strongest performers rarely made it to the top floor — not because they lacked results, but because they couldn't make those results land in a room.

We watched directors outperform their peers for years and still get passed over. We watched people with weaker track records get promoted because they could carry authority into a conversation. The feedback was always the same — "executive presence," "communication style," "leadership readiness" — without anyone explaining what those words actually meant or how to build what they were describing.

So we stopped waiting for organizations to fix what they'd spent decades ignoring. We built Ascend to give high-performing executives the specific, learnable skills that nobody was systematically teaching — starting with how they write.

Who we are

AJM

A.J. Mercer

Co-Founder, Ascend Executive Presence

A.J. is an engineer by training with an MBA from a top-tier business school and thirty years of global executive experience. He has led marketing, business development, engineering, product management, sales, and operations across electronics, automotive, defense, industrial, and mining — inside Fortune 500 companies and privately held firms alike. He has run businesses across the US, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and has served on the boards of private companies. The through-line of his career was watching exceptional operators get overlooked because they couldn't translate their capability into the language of the boardroom — and eventually deciding to build the resource he wished had existed.

Claire Ashford

Co-Founder, Ascend Executive Presence

Claire spent twelve years in investment banking before stepping into increasingly senior operating roles, ultimately serving as COO of a mid-market asset management firm managing $4 billion in assets. She has an MBA from a top-tier business school and twenty-two years of experience across bulge-bracket banking, private credit, and institutional asset management. For most of that career, she was the only woman in the room — and she spent years studying the specific mechanics that determined who got heard and who didn't. By the time she was leading teams, she was teaching every high-performer under her what no program had taught her.

A. Rae

Chief Strategy & Brand Officer, Ascend Executive Presence

A. Rae holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Chicago and spent years in academic and research environments at both Chicago and Stanford before building a career across consumer brands, entertainment, gaming, technology, and trademark law. That path sharpened a single question she kept returning to: what makes a professional — or a brand — recognizable, trusted, and worth protecting? Her work in trademark law gave her a precise answer: either you're distinctive enough to stand apart in the rooms that matter, or you're not — and vague is the same as unprotected. She joined Ascend as Chief Strategy & Brand Officer because the founding thesis maps exactly onto what she's built her entire career around: helping high-performing professionals develop presence that holds its value, in competitive markets, over time.

Built by Reveal Advisors

What makes Ascend different

Built by operators, not coaches. Our founders have run global businesses, sat on boards, and navigated C-suite transitions firsthand. Ascend reflects what actually works in those rooms — not frameworks derived from case studies or second-hand observation.

Mechanics, not philosophy. Executive presence is a set of learnable skills. We teach them one email at a time, with a clear explanation of every change and why it matters. Not theory. Not soft skills. Specific moves with specific results.

The gap made visible. Most executives don't know exactly how their communication is landing. Ascend shows you the difference between how you're writing now and how leaders at the next level communicate — every single time you use it.

Who We Are

Our team includes senior executives and advisors with backgrounds from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, the University of Chicago, and Stanford — who spent decades leading global businesses across electronics, automotive, industrial, defense, financial services, consumer brands, entertainment, and professional services. Our founders have run teams across four continents, sat on boards of private companies, navigated C-suite transitions firsthand, and built expertise spanning economics, brand strategy, and trademark law. Ascend is the product we wish had existed when we were Directors trying to figure out what it actually took to get to the next level.

The skills that move careers forward shouldn't be a secret.

Why we built this

Who we are

What makes Ascend different

Who We Are

See it in action — try Ascend free for 14 days