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Director, Product Management

Remote - Canada

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 building an Engineering, Product, and Design (EPD) team that will power the technology transformation that the industry needs. Machine learning (ML) and Large Language Models (LLMs) will be one of the main pillars of this technological transformation. The primary customers for the EPD team at Ascend will be the partner firms who now operate within Ascend and their clients.
Reporting to the Chief Product Officer, the Director of Product Management will be building world-class product management teams. The team you build will be responsible for all accountant-facing product features. And as a key product leader in the organization, you will own the strategy and roadmap of all accountant-facing product features. You would be responsible for creating systems that will hold the product managers to a high bar on working backwards from customer opportunities. Your team will be industry experts in accounting service delivery. Ascend’s goal is to revitalize the accounting industry. Your team’s goal is to provide solutions that will fundamentally change what accountants do with their time (and therefore the cost structure of the business). Success in this role will be measured by the effectiveness of the product management machine that continuously defines and ships high-impact AI-powered solutions to our primary customers.


This role offers the opportunity to work fully remote in Canada.


Key Responsibilities
Working with the Chief Product and Technology Officer, the Director for Product Management will be responsible for the following:
1. Being a strong influencer of Ascend’s AI strategy, in partnership with the rest of the EPD leadership
2. Thinking Big and identifying opportunities for large transformations in the accounting industry
3. Developing strong hypotheses for ML and LLM experiments, based on effective customer research and a deep understanding of our partner firms’ operations
4. Recommending effective product strategies that will transform Ascend operating margins in the next 3 years
5. Guiding the product management team through the entire product development lifecycle, from ideation to product launch, with a focus on iteration and continuous improvement
6. Crafting a 12-month prioritized roadmap and hiring the necessary product management team to own areas of the roadmap
7. Giving autonomy to your new product managers to own areas of the roadmap while you own the overall cohesiveness of the roadmap
8. Working with the AI Solutions Architect to define and prioritize the pipeline of ML and LLM experiments to validate prioritized hypotheses
9. Establishing repeatable mechanisms such as decision document templates to make thorough product priority decisions
10. Establishing mechanisms for product launches and monitoring key metrics post-launch
11. Executing and clearly communicating outcomes, recommending necessary pivots, and reprioritizing based on outcomes
12. Ensuring your team provides continuous, crisp input to the engineering team for successful productization of all product briefs
13. Working closely with engineering leaders to align engineering priorities with business priorities
14. Communicating crisply to Ascend executive leadership and shaping their product vision on accountant facing products


Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology; Master’s a plus.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
o Accomplished professional with unquestionable integrity, a strong work ethic, and demonstrated success implementing and improving reporting processes
o A ‘can-do’, solution-oriented individual and initiative-taking problem solver; intellectually curious, analytical, and committed to self-improvement
o Exceptional organizational and time management skills, including the ability to prioritize tasks in a demanding environment. Able to initiate, manage, and execute projects with minimal supervision
o Excellent verbal and written communication skills to maintain strong relationships with vendors and other stakeholders
o Knowledge of integrating diverse tools and technologies to create cohesive, AI-powered solutions that enhance efficiency and reduce costs in accounting
o Experience in providing clear inputs to engineering teams, understanding the importance of good architecture through iteration, and finding pragmatic solutions to technical challenges
o Understanding of accounting workflows, tax preparation processes, or related fields, with experience building AI-powered tools for these industries being a strong plus
o Proven experience leading AI projects and working closely with leadership teams to influence business strategy. Ability to explain complex AI concepts to non-technical stakeholders
o Proven ability to build, hire, and lead a high-performing product management team, setting a high bar for hiring and creating areas of ownership for each product manager
o Ability to work closely with various teams such as Product Design, Engineering, AI Solutions, and Product Operations, ensuring effective communication and alignment on goals
o Ability to align product strategy with executive vision, offering valuable input on AI innovations and contributing to strategic decision-making
o Skilled at establishing strong relationships with internal partner firms and clients, positioning the product team as trusted advisors in the accounting industry


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.

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