Strategic Foresight. Experiential Learning​
Perspective. Humour. Directness
Institutions Making Decisions That Matter in Decades
See the sunrise, not just the slide deck.
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​Ascension Associates is a boutique business and people strategy firm. We work on the part of strategy that determines whether plans actually happen — the leadership, governance, and human dynamics inside the institution.
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Our clients are family enterprises, regulated businesses, and mission-driven organisations. They think in decades instead of quarters. They know that the quality of their decisions depends on the quality of their conversations — and that both are harder than they look from the outside.
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Our founder Larraine spent years in executive search with regulated industries — reading what goes unsaid, finding real fit, spotting risk before it surfaces. That same lens sits underneath everything we do at Ascension: strategy and governance work, team development, and senior leadership advisory.
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We stay lean deliberately. That means we stay close to the work, move quickly when you need a thinking partner — not a six-week proposal — and say no to briefs that aren't ours so we can say a better yes to the ones that are.
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One straight-talk partner. No glossy vendors.​
Hong Kong–based. Global reach.
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What if we can approach hiring and talent management differently?
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This question asked by our founder Larraine back in 2017, laid the foundation of what would become Ascension Associates today. The sunrise pictures you see were taken by her in a Gold Coast, Australia hot air balloon ride. Where do you focus? On the sun or the landscape?
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From the ground, everything felt fragmented; once the balloon lifted, the whole landscape snapped into view—roads linking districts, houses sitting quietly under the same strip of sky.
That experience shaped our see the whole picture philosophy: lift just high enough to see how everything connects, notice what is really driving tension or confusion, then come back down to earth and decide what to do next.
No mysticism, just perspective. (We like to add a sense of humour too :)
Before building Ascension, Larraine spent years in executive search — placing senior leaders inside regulated industries across Asia. That work taught her about the gap between a good plan and a good outcome is almost always a people problem in disguise.
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She founded Ascension in 2018 to work on that gap directly — with family enterprises, regulated businesses, and leadership teams navigating decisions that compound over decades.
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She is based in Hong Kong and works across the region.
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You can download official bio of Larraine here.
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CEO
Larraine Chang
On paper, Ascension is a business.
In practice, we sign on to initiatives like the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles and take on selected pro bono work because inclusion and leadership are not abstract topics for us; they show up in real people’s lives.
If you like to know more about our work with refugees and women in minority, get in touch.