Ascend - AI Leadership Training for Finance Leaders
A cohort-based AI leadership program that made applied AI part of diligence, deal packaging, and portfolio support.
The Opportunity
Ascend is a private equity firm managing more than $1 billion in AUM across a national portfolio. Their leadership faced a challenge that was twofold. First, they needed to understand what AI meant as an investment consideration: how it was reshaping competitive dynamics across the industries they evaluate, and what it signaled about the companies in their portfolio. Second, they needed to build real operating capability with AI inside the firm itself. The way they evaluate investments, prepare materials, and support portfolio companies all needed to improve materially. Both had to happen inside ongoing deal workflows and keep up with deal pace.
Ascend's leadership wanted to move with intention. The firm needed a structured path to applied AI fluency: the applied capability to use it inside the most demanding parts of their workflow. They also needed the investment lens, the ability to assess AI maturity and exposure across the companies they back. An audience at this level of analytical rigor demanded a program designed from the ground up for investment professionals who hold work to a standard of judgment and precision that a one-off event cannot reach.
Key Challenges
No consistent way to weigh a target's AI maturity, exposure, and competitive position in deal assessment.
Evaluation, materials preparation, and portfolio support all had to improve materially, at deal pace, with AI.
Investment professionals hold work to a standard of judgment and precision no one-off workshop can meet.
Leaders had to guide AI adoption inside portfolio companies from the board level down.
The Process
Designed every session for the investment context from day one, purpose-built for investment professionals rather than adapted from a generic course.
Ran live instruction on a biweekly cadence for 50 core leaders, structured as an ongoing executive course with consistent momentum.
Between sessions, leaders applied AI directly to live deal work: research, packaging, and models, so every technique was tested against real stakes.
Leaders brought actual work product back to the group for review, turning practice into lasting behavior through peer accountability and iteration.
Our Solution
A high-touch, cohort-based AI program for investment professionals, run as an ongoing executive course. Leaders learned to assess AI maturity, exposure, and competitive positioning as a core factor in due diligence. They applied AI to research, synthesis, deal packaging, and financial models without reducing quality or rigor. And they left each session equipped to identify AI opportunities inside their portfolio companies and guide implementation from the board level down.
Key Capabilities
Impact
Leaders now apply AI inside their most demanding workflows. AI became part of how the firm evaluates opportunities, packages materials, and supports portfolio execution, with a 35% efficiency improvement in key workflows. Adoption reached 85% across the portfolio as leaders carried tested outputs from each session into the companies they oversee. The program produced 50 leaders equipped to champion AI adoption across the organizations they manage, carrying tested methods into deals and timelines where delays have real cost.
Key Results
- 50 core leaders trained in applied AI for investment workflows
- 85% AI adoption across the portfolio
- 35% efficiency improvement in key workflows
- Leaders now weigh AI maturity and exposure in the companies they evaluate
- Tested AI methods carried directly into portfolio companies as a working resource
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