Your business is always evolving, Your plan should be too.

Ascent Advisors acts as a family office style partner for privately held and family-owned businesses — coordinating consulting, wealth management, insurance, and your outside advisors around the real and evolving needs of your business, your family, and your legacy.

What We Do
Who We Help
Evolution vs. transition
Our Process
Resources 
What We Do

We are the catalyst that gets families moving.

Most business owners already have advisors. What they often lack is alignment. The business plan, personal financial plan, estate plan, insurance strategy, and leadership plan are handled separately — creating gaps, duplicated effort, and sometimes conflict. Ascent's role is to organize the moving pieces, coordinate the right people, and keep the business, family, and advisory team moving in the same direction.

We are an unbiased third party. For families that have been circling the same conversations for years without gaining momentum, that matters more than almost anything else. We do not have a stake in the outcome. We have a commitment to the process — and to helping every family member arrive at a place they can live with. We guide clients to attain their desired future state. That is the work.

70%

of family businesses fail to transfer to the next generation

60%

of those failures trace back to trust and communication breakdowns

30%

survive to the second generation without intentional planning

Years

before a transition is when the most important decisions get made

Multi-generational families at an inflection point

Families where the senior generation is ready to begin stepping back, the next generation is ready — or not yet ready — to step forward, and the gap between those two realities needs to be navigated with care.

Manufacturing, construction, and closely held businesses

Any privately held business where ownership, leadership, and family are intertwined — and where informal conversations have not been enough to create real alignment or momentum.

Owners without a clear successor

Not every business has a next generation ready to take over. We are equally experienced helping owners identify and evaluate alternatives — a management team transition, a strategic sale, or a structured wind-down — and helping them face those realities with clarity rather than avoidance.

Who We Help

Any family business navigating what comes next.

You do not need to be planning an exit to work with us. You may simply need to decide who is involved and who isn't. Or you may be ready to plan the entire ownership and leadership transition from start to finish. We meet clients wherever they are.

Agricultural producers & Farm families

We have deep roots in agriculture and genuine care for the industry. Margin compression, land values, and multi-generational family dynamics make ag businesses uniquely complex — and uniquely important to plan carefully.

Why we call it Business Evolution Planning ~ and not Transition Planning

Transition planning implies a future event. Business Evolution Planning reflects the ongoing reality of business ownership. The decisions that determine whether a transition succeeds are often made years before the transition occurs.

Traditional transition planning

Focused on a specific future event

  • Asks: what happens when ownership changes?

  • Triggered by a near-term decision or deadline

  • Often a one-time project with a defined end

  • Focused primarily on the transaction itself

  • May not address the people, family, or governance side

BEP vs. Transition Planning

Business Evolution Planning

An ongoing relationship that evolves with the client

  • Asks: what needs to evolve now so we're ready for whatever comes next?

  • Begins well before any transition is imminent

  • Designed to evolve as the business and family evolve

  • Addresses the business, the family, the leaders, and the legacy

  • Coordinates consulting, wealth, insurance, and outside advisors together

A disciplined, linear process ~ built around your situation

We follow a structured process because structure creates momentum. For families that have been talking about the same issues for years, a clear path forward is often the most valuable thing we provide.

1. Discovery

Understanding what matters to every person in the room

We meet with all stakeholders — owners, family members, key leaders — to understand what is important to the business and to each individual. We review business and financial documents and identify operational, ownership, and leadership risks or gaps. This becomes the foundation of the Business Evolution Plan.

3. Family Dynamics

Explore family dynamics and address communication gaps

Many transitions fail not because the numbers don't work — but because expectations are unclear, communication breaks down, or the family lacks a process for making decisions together. We help families surface those dynamics directly, establish communication protocols, and create governance structures that reduce conflict before it starts.

5. Planning

Propose a comprehensive plan ~ then shape it together

We develop a written Business Evolution Plan that is consistent with the facts and circumstances. We then work with the client on modifications to ensure it actually fits their life, not just the analysis. A plan that nobody will follow is not a plan — it is a document.

2. Economic Analysis

Analyze the economics of the business and the individuals

We build a clear picture of the business's financial position alongside the owner's personal financial independence — because a Business Evolution Plan cannot be evaluated from the business side alone. The owner needs to know what they need personally, what income is available outside the company, and whether the plan supports their desired lifestyle.

4. Priorities

Define priorities and weave in tax and estate strategies

We work with the client to clarify what matters most, identify the constraints, and integrate tax and estate strategies that fit their specific facts and circumstances — not generic advice applied to every situation

6. Collaboration

Coordinate the advisory team ~ we do not replace them

Most business owners already have attorneys, CPAs, bankers, lenders, and other specialists. What they often lack is alignment across those relationships. We coordinate the client's existing advisory team so the family receives integrated guidance — not disconnected advice from professionals working in silos.

7. Ongoing

Stay involved as the business and family evolves

Ascent's model is built around ongoing engagement. Regular planning meetings, annual reviews, leadership development check-ins, governance conversations, insurance audits, portfolio reviews, and ongoing updates to the transition roadmap. A static plan cannot serve a business that is constantly changing.
Our Process