BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA
JAMES L. CLARK, CEO
Ascend Talent Strategies has been an invaluable partner in helping to build the talent needed to align a transformational agenda and accomplish steady yet significant growth along the way. Talent is the defining ingredient to success and Ascend Talent Strategies has helped us develop people and build initiatives that leverage our human assets, achieving remarkable and previously unseen results.

JP CULLEN
JEANNIE CULLEN-SCHULTZ AND GEORGE CULLEN, CO-PRESIDENTS
JP Cullen relies on Ascend Talent Strategies to aid us in the most important part of our business: hiring and developing our people. Ascend provides an objective resource for us when we consider our new hires. In addition, we utilize Ascend for hands-on coaching of our staff. We would recommend Ascend to any company that is considering hiring them.

Betty Brinn Children’s Museum
Brian King, CEO
The mission of the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum is to inspire all children to wonder and explore their world through play and innovative, hands-on learning experiences. Since 1995, the Museum’s exhibits and programs have delighted more than 4.7 million children and families from southeast Wisconsin and beyond. Working with Ascend has helped our leaders identify and understand their strengths and opportunities for growth in immediately actionable ways through a surprisingly fast and efficient process. And importantly, Ascend doesn’t just understand people, their motivations, and how they work (or don’t!). They also understand what today’s organization needs and tailor their analysis accordingly.

CREATIVE AUTOMATION
MARK STRECKERT, CO-OWNER AND VICE PRESIDENT
Working with Ascend Talent Strategies (ATS) to screen potential engineering hires was a game changer for us. ATS took time to really learn about our business and what makes an engineer successful at Creative Automation. Since we started working with ATS, our hires have been much more successful. Pre-hire testing with ATS has given us a remarkably powerful tool to hire engineers who are both technically competent and the right personal fit for a long career at Creative Automation Inc.

Michael Best
David A. Krutz,
Firm Managing Partner
Michael Best’s relationship with Ascend Talent Strategies is approaching its 10-year mark. Ascend is now an essential component of all our searches for executive talent. The insights of their industrial/organizational psychologists help us better understand the candidates we are considering and enables us to focus our interviews so that we gain meaningful information on how the candidates will likely fit in our organization. Beyond the search and interview process, Ascend fosters a personalized approach with each new hire so that we can build an onboarding and integration plan tailored to the new hire and allows them to reach their potential more quickly.

APPLIED MATERIALS
SUSAN SCHMITT, GROUP VICE PRESIDENT AND HEAD OF HUMAN RESOURCES
Our talent program is benefiting from Ascend’s skills in assessing and identifying ways to develop a leader’s capacity to comfortably deal with the challenges that exist in today’s global business climate. They also help us better understand the suitability of candidates and employees for critical positions concerning their team role, conflict style, work style, learning approach, personality, and managerial style. Ascend has helped us make key talent decisions that will continue to fuel our organization’s ability to set strategic direction and achieve our business goals.

WENTHE-DAVIDSON ENGINEERING CO.
FREDERICK M ANDERSON, PRESIDENT/CEO
Wenthe-Davidson has enjoyed the service of Ascend for over 10 years. We have used them to assist us with strategic planning, talent fit and proper placement of top executives as well as middle management development. I feel they know our company’s personality and philosophy and steer us to maximize our effectiveness through teamwork and management cohesiveness.

M3 INSURANCE
ALICIA KISER, VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES
M3 Insurance has worked with Ascend Talent Strategies for 5+ years and they have become an extension of our team. I most appreciate their ability to help M3 hone in on the root of what is holding our employees back from a performance or development perspective vs. fixing the actions. Between their work with our team on everything from Executive Coaching to acting as a sounding board in one-off situations, the insight and expertise of their industrial/organizational psychologists have provided to the M3 team is invaluable.