Regional IT Support Lead

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 PeopleFirst private equity firm Alpine Investors (~$20B AUM), Ascend is the leading aggregator of regional accounting firms in the U.S., with ~3,200 employees globally and approaching $1B in revenue. Ascend has built a modern platform for regional accounting firms that enables them to stay independent in their brand, approach to client service, and cultural autonomy, while benefiting from the strategic support and resources of a large CPA firm. Ascend provides access to growth capital, a robust talent acquisition engine, a best-in-breed technology platform, an AI development team, a catalytic leadership system, shared back-office services, and modernized growth incentives, so firms can surmount the typical challenges of the standalone partnership model and reach their full potential. Founded in January 2023, Ascend has grown rapidly both organically and through M&A, placing it among the Top 25 largest accounting firms in the U.S.

For more information, visit ascendtogether.com.

About Alpine Investors

Alpine Investors is a PeopleFirst 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 ~$20 billion in AUM and has offices in San Francisco, New York, Salt Lake City, and Austin, TX.

For more information on the firm, visit www.alpineinvestors.com.

Position Summary

Ascend is seeking a Regional IT Support Lead to serve as a senior, hands-on member of its regional service desk and the primary IT relationship owner for every Partner Firm in their assigned region. Spending approximately 80% of their time working tickets alongside the regional L2 IT Support Technicians, the Lead will also supervise daily queue health, coach the team, and own escalations for their firms so that frustration never festers.

The Regional IT Support Lead will see patterns across firms, recognize when an issue points to a larger gap (for example, an application that was not implemented to the Ascend standard), and organize the right response with L3 and L4 teams and firm leadership. As the known face of Ascend IT for every firm in the region, the Lead will deliver responsive, high-quality support and proactive relationship ownership so that firms trust the service desk and issues are addressed before they escalate.

The Regional IT Support Lead will report to the Manager of IT End User Services and meet monthly with the Regional President.

Key Responsibilities

Hands-On Support & Service Excellence

• Work the Freshservice queue daily, maintaining an active personal ticket workload (approximately 80% of time), resolving escalated tickets, and modeling first-touch resolution for the regional team.
• Lead the regional team to resolve 80%+ of tickets at first human touch and 95%+ within SLA response and resolution timeframes.
• Deliver outstanding service to regional firms, earning consistently high satisfaction and requester NPS.

Team Leadership & Coaching

• Supervise 2–3 L2 IT Support Technicians: assign and balance work, run daily queue reviews, coach and develop, and provide input to scorecard reviews.
• Keep technicians coached, balanced, and productive while carrying a meaningful personal ticket load.
• Coordinate regional shift coverage, the on-call rotation, and busy season weekend coverage.

Partner Firm Relationships & Escalations

• Serve as the IT relationship owner for every Partner Firm in the region, leading Firm Technology Connect calls and each firm’s monthly operations review.
• Plan and complete a quarterly site visit for every firm in the region and file the templated report covering leader check-in, network room, conferencing, workstations, and open tickets.
• Own escalations for regional firms, coordinating with L3 Application Support, L3 Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Integration teams and keeping firm leadership informed until resolution.
• Meet monthly with the Regional President to review service performance, firm feedback, and upcoming needs.

Regional Performance & Process

• Monitor the regional scorecard, including ticket aging, SLA, first-touch resolution, satisfaction, process adherence, and AI resolution, and act quickly on gaps.
• Keep open queues and aging tickets under control at every firm in the region, ensuring any older ticket has a documented plan communicated to the firm.
• Reinforce Freshservice as the single system of record, redirecting requests that come through side channels or go directly to L3 back into the process.
• Identify recurring issues and trends by firm, bring them forward to problem management, and drive firms toward Ascend standard implementations.

Shift Left & Knowledge Management

• Drive Shift Left for the region, ensuring every recurring firm issue becomes a Knowledge Base or how-to article Ascend’s AI-first support layer can use, or an automation request.
• Review the team’s articles for quality, enabling the AI-first layer to resolve a meaningfully larger share of the region’s incidents each year.

Partner Firm Integration

• Support Technology Stack Transition (“TST”) and hypercare for newly joining Partner Firms, including onboarding inherited firm IT staff and evaluating them on the job against role criteria.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience providing remote and deskside end user support, including at least 2 years in the public accounting industry.
• Prior team lead or supervisory experience preferred, with a demonstrated ability to coach and develop technicians.
• Bachelor’s degree and relevant IT certifications preferred, but not required.
• Deep knowledge of accounting firm applications and workflows, including CCH Axcess, UltraTax, CCH ProSystem Engagement, and Excel add-ins.
• Strong troubleshooting across Azure Virtual Desktop (Nerdio), Microsoft 365, Intune, Zscaler, network, and conferencing environments.
• Hands-on experience using Freshservice or comparable ITSM reporting to manage queue health and SLA; familiarity with ITIL frameworks and best practices.
• Superior EQ and influencing skills, with proven relationship management with firm leadership and clear, timely communication during escalations.
• Bias for action and an ownership mentality; reliable and process-driven.

What You Can Count on at Ascend

We live by our values:

• Own it. We seize growth opportunities with the passion, speed, and accountability of an entrepreneur.
• Serve wholeheartedly. We love our people and serve them with positivity and kindness.
• Be excellent. We set a high bar because our mission matters.
• Win together. We stay in sync, achieve as a team, and celebrate each other.
• Bring the sunshine. We have fun and bring enthusiasm to make the journey joyful.

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.