About Ascend

Ascend empowers entrepreneurial CPAs to reach their goals with an innovative growth model that brings their firms into the new age. Backed by private equity from people-focused Alpine Investors, Ascend is building a modern platform for regional accounting firms that enables them to stay independent while accessing the resources of a large CPA firm to help them grow. Ascend provides access to growth capital, robust talent acquisition, best-of-breed technology, a catalytic leadership system, shared back-office services, and modernized equity incentives so that firms can surmount today’s industry challenges and reach their full potential. Founded in January 2023, the company attained revenues sufficient to qualify it as a Top 100 U.S. accounting firm within six months of operations.

For more information, visit ascendtogether.com.

About Alpine Investors

Alpine Investors is a people-driven private equity firm that is committed to building great companies by working with, learning from, and developing exceptional people. Alpine prides itself on fostering cultures where people value empowerment, diversity, fairness, integrity, and intellectual honesty. Founded in 2001, Alpine specializes in investments in companies in the software and services industries. Alpine has over $15 billion in AUM and has offices in San Francisco, New York, and Salt Lake City.

For more information on the firm, visit www.alpineinvestors.com

Position Summary

Ascend is seeking a Senior Manager, Integration (“Senior Manager”) to oversee and project manage multiple workstreams to ensure the seamless integration of our acquired platform firms (“partner firms”). The Senior Manager will quarterback multiple integration efforts simultaneously, monitoring multiple tasks and ongoing initiatives while minimizing disruption of day-to-day operations of our partner firms post-deal close. This person can juggle multiple priorities, demonstrates detail and customer obsession, builds trusted relationships, and drives continuous iteration, improvement, and execution of our Integration Playbook.

Key Responsibilities

Develop, improve, and execute Integration Playbook workstreams for newly-acquired partner firms.

• Quarterback full-spectrum, cross-functional integration processes for each acquired partner firm, ensuring operational excellence and 100% compliance to regulatory frameworks and Ascend protocols.
• Work with relevant stakeholders to facilitate the transfer of Finance accounts and reporting capabilities, including credit cards and banking accounts, business insurance transfers, paying agent agreements, etc.
• Partner with People Operations to ensure seamless transition of benefits, payroll, people technology, and relevant immigration / visa requirements.
• Support the Technology team to transform and integrate the partner firm’s tech stack.
• Minimize to the fullest extent possible any disruption in day-to-day operations of the partner firm during the post-close integration process.
• Develop a strong understand of, and partnership with, the Ascend “machine,” leveraging cross-functional leaders and support functions to execute critical integration tasks and manage partner firm stakeholders.
• Drive accountability throughout the integration process, leveraging data-driven project management acumen.
  
  

Demonstrate superior service orientation while leading “red carpet” roll-out strategies and initiatives.

• Lead kickoff calls with Ascend’s functional leaders and teams to ensure alignment of post-close integration timelines and responsibilities.
• Drive PeopleFirst operating rhythms to ensure the successful launch of new partner firm priorities.
• Communicate frequently and strategically the status of projects to all key stakeholders so project progress is visible and bottlenecks are being addressed proactively.
• Solicit qualitative and quantitative feedback to ensure partner firm NPS is high, while leveraging learnings to drive continuous improvement.
• “Bring the sunshine” with a can-do attitude and eagerness to achieve stakeholder satisfaction.
  
  

Build trusted relationships across the Ascend ecosystem.

• Build meaningful relationships up and down the organization at Ascend Partner Services, partner firms, and other relevant players.
• Demonstrate exceptional judgment and high EQ during the execution of integration processes, building credibility and demonstrating reliability at every juncture.
• Escalate consequential issues to senior leadership when necessary and drive collaborative solutions.
  
  

Qualifications

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in operations, project management, or post-merger integrations at a high-growth, fast-paced organization.
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.
• Unparalleled attention to detail and organizational skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify opportunities and make data-driven decisions.
• Excellent leadership abilities with the capacity to inspire and motivate cross-functional teams.
• Previous experience leveraging project management software (Wrike, Asana, etc.) is strongly preferred.
  
  

At Ascend, we provide a fair and equal employment opportunity for all candidates regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, marital status, disability, or any other legally protected characteristic. Ascend hires and promotes individuals solely based on qualifications for the position to be filled and business needs.