About Ascend
A steady presence behind the next right move.
Stephanie Balaam has spent a working lifetime in rooms she was invited into on somebody else’s behalf — county government, national marketing, federal contracts. Ascend is what happens when that becomes the whole job.
Founder
Stephanie Balaam
Ascend Consulting Partners, LLC
The person behind the process
Grounded in service. Clear on the assignment.
Listen. Prepare. Respect.
Seven years in county government. Three as the marketing specialist for the first female African American medical provider serving the East Coast region. Six at DirecTV, first managing listings and then as assistant marketing director. Then marketing director at RBC Liberty Mutual, until the company consolidated in 2006.
By then the conclusion was obvious. If she could build a market for everybody else, she could build one on her own terms — so she founded DSA Marketing and Associates and went after government work. DSA was awarded the Base Realignment and Closure contract: close Fort McPherson, move its people, and get the Tri-County area ready for what arrives next. Schools. Medical facilities. Department of Transportation.
What she loved about it was never the contract. It was the part where you put the right person in front of the right resource and watch something open up. Ascend is that part, on purpose, for businesses that have earned the room but cannot always be in it.
Thirty-odd years of rooms
The introductions came a long time before Ascend did.
Where the network was actually built
County government
Seven years learning how public bodies decide, who has to be in the room before they will, and how long that really takes.
Healthcare marketing
Three years as marketing specialist for the first female African American medical provider serving the East Coast region.
DirecTV
Two years as listings manager, then four as assistant marketing director — national scale, and the discipline that comes with it.
RBC Liberty Mutual
Marketing director, through to the company’s consolidation in 2006.
DSA Marketing and Associates
Her own firm, working local and federal government contracts as marketer and public relations consultant.
The BRAC contract
Awarded the Base Realignment and Closure work: closing Fort McPherson, relocating its people, and preparing the Tri-County area — schools, medical facilities, Department of Transportation — for the growth that followed.
A deliberate pause
She stepped back from a contract to care for her family, and worked from a hospital room for over a month before she let it go. Nothing about the years since has been accidental.
The signing agency
A phone call from a friend, an active notarial commission, and a business built on being the person trusted with the paperwork that matters.
Ascend Consulting Partners
All of it pointed the same direction. Ascend is the part of every one of those jobs she never wanted to stop doing.
I feel the most complete when I am helping others. I am ready to be in the room for them if they cannot be.Stephanie BalaamFounder, Ascend Consulting Partners
How she works
The qualities that make a connection count.
Disciplined. Discerning. Dependable.
Disciplined, discerning, dependable — the three words that decide whether a draft, an introduction, or a conversation is ready to leave the room.
Disciplined
Federal and local government contracts run on preparation, documentation, and doing exactly what you said you would do.
Discerning
Stephanie pays attention to nuance — the need beneath the request and the fit behind the introduction.
Dependable
Notary work and consulting both ask for care, confidentiality, and a steady presence when the details matter.
Relationship-oriented
Closing a base and standing up a region taught her the same lesson twice: it moves when the right people finally meet.
Ninety seconds
Hear it from Stephanie herself.
No script, no autocue
How she shows up
People do business with people they trust.
Humility, integrity, service
Stephanie’s Christian foundation is part of how she works, not a filter on who she works with. It shows up as humility, as integrity when nobody is checking, and as a commitment to serve people properly. The invitation is honest partnership, and it is open to people of every background and every belief.
In practice that means she will tell you when your offer is not ready before she will spend a relationship on it. She will not pass your name into a room where it does not belong. And when she does make the introduction, both people will already know why they are talking.
That is the whole discipline. It is slower than a list. It is the reason it works.
A welcome for the right partners
If you value trust, we already have something in common.
Trust first, always
Ascend partners with leaders who care about the quality of their work and the quality of the relationships around it. If that sounds like your organization, let us talk.