Strategy & Growth Advisory

Elevate Every Decision

Ascent Strategy Group helps growing companies find the route from where they are to where they're trying to go — and hands them the plan to get there.

Start the climb See how we work

The approach

Most companies don't lack ambition. They lack a clear line to the top.

You know where you want your business to be. What's missing is the honest read on where you stand today and the sequence of moves that closes the gap. That's the work we do.

Ascent Strategy Group is a strategy and growth advisory for founders and leadership teams who are ready to make deliberate decisions instead of reactive ones. We come in, get our bearings quickly, and build a plan you can actually execute — not a deck that lives in a drawer.

Every engagement is led personally and grounded in your numbers, your market, and your team's real capacity. The result is a route you trust and the confidence to commit to it.

What we do

Three ways we help you gain ground.

01 · MAP THE ROUTE

Strategic Planning

A clear-eyed assessment of where you are, a defined destination, and a phased plan connecting the two — with the priorities and trade-offs made explicit.

02 · FIND THE FOOTHOLD

Growth Strategy

Positioning, pricing, and market expansion decisions backed by evidence, so you invest in the moves most likely to compound instead of chasing every opportunity.

03 · STEADY THE CLIMB

Operational Clarity

The systems, metrics, and rhythms that turn a good plan into consistent execution — so momentum doesn't depend on any one person holding it together.

Why Ascent

Senior attention, an outside vantage, and plans that get executed.

Led personally

You work directly with a senior advisor from first call to final handoff — never handed down to a junior team once the contract is signed.

An honest vantage point

Being outside your day-to-day is the advantage. We name the things that are hard to see from inside and tell you what we'd do about them.

Built to be used

Strategy only matters if it moves. Every plan ships with owners, sequence, and milestones so the work continues after we step back.

Kelsey Wohleben, Founder and Principal of Ascent Strategy Group

Founder & Principal

Kelsey Wohleben

Kelsey Wohleben founded Ascent Strategy Group on a simple conviction: most organizations already have the talent and ambition to win — what they need is a clearer route and the discipline to follow it. Across nine years leading enterprise-scale transformation in defense and commercial organizations, he has built a career out of turning complex operational challenges into plans teams can actually execute.

A West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran, Kelsey served eight years as an officer and aviator — commanding organizations of up to 70 people and directing operations and resource planning for a 2,700-person brigade. That work demanded exactly what strategy demands: reading a complicated situation quickly, aligning stakeholders around a shared objective, and making high-stakes decisions under pressure. He carried the same discipline into the commercial world within Walmart's import distribution network, where he led process-improvement initiatives that cleared systemic bottlenecks and accelerated executive decision-making.

His approach is grounded in analytics as much as leadership. He holds a degree in Operations Research Engineering, is a certified Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst, and is completing his Executive MBA at William & Mary's Raymond A. Mason School of Business — making him an advisor as comfortable in the data as in the room where the decision gets made.

  • ▲ U.S. Army Veteran — Captain, Aviation
  • ▲ B.S. Operations Research Engineering, West Point
  • ▲ Executive MBA (in progress), William & Mary
  • ▲ Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst
  • ▲ Active Secret Clearance

Let's talk

Ready to elevate your next decision?

Start with a no-obligation conversation about where your business is headed and what's standing in the way.

Book a consultation