The Minds Powering Ascendance
The team behind Ascendance is comprised of industry veterans who have spent decades at the intersection of emerging technology and global enterprise. We are not just builders; we are strategic architects with a proven track record in Artificial Intelligence, large-scale software engineering, and executive business leadership.
Gary Hatfield
Founder & CEO
Leads Ascendnce’s strategy and delivery, focused on operational ROI from production AI agents.
Howard Luong
CTO
Architects the AI platform and infrastructure that powers reliable, secure agent deployments.
Jason Tan
CAIO
Oversees applied AI strategy, model selection, and governance across client systems.
Johanna Rice
Head of Customer
Owns customer outcomes end-to-end, from onboarding to measurable ROI and expansion.
David Harper
Head of AI Platform
Leads platform engineering—integrations, tooling, monitoring, and scalability for AI agents.
Travis Bailey
AI Engineer
Builds and deploys custom AI agents and workflow automations inside your existing stack.
Vivian Mai
AI Engineer
Develops agent workflows and data pipelines that keep operations fast, accurate, and traceable.
Meghan Reilly
AI Engineer
Implements production-grade agents with strong testing, reliability, and performance.
Zhiliang Ong
Senior UI/UX Consultant
Designs clear, operator-first interfaces and journeys for AI-enabled workflows.
Neal Downing
Customer Success Manager
Keeps customers supported post-launch with continuous improvements and proactive monitoring.
Clark Winters
AI Engineer
Builds agent systems and integrations, specialising in automation that scales.
Alex Zhen
AI Engineer
Ships end-to-end agent features, from data extraction to tool actions and QA.