Ascend·Gov
Who is behind this

Four operators.
One conviction.

Ascend·Gov isn't a deck. It's the next chapter of work the four of us have already shipped — at Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, AWS, Schneider Electric, Accenture, Capgemini, WealthAi and AthenosLabs. AI strategy at the board, GenAI engineering at the keyboard, delivery leadership in the room, and the product design and commercial model that makes a capability adopted — and sellable. We're now turning all of it on a government, one department at a time.

Portrait of Didem Ün Ateş
01 · Goldman Sachs · Schneider Electric · Microsoft · Accenture

Didem Ün Ateş

Strategic Advisor · AI Strategy & Responsible AI

Founder & CEO of LotusAI and Advisor to the Goldman Sachs Asset Management AI / Generative AI Council. Previously VP, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, and Head of Applied Strategy, Data & AI in Microsoft's CDO Office.

Two decades steering AI strategy, due diligence and Responsible AI at Fortune 500 scale — across financial services, energy, public sector and tourism. Sits on global AI governance forums and chairs the operational rollout of Responsible AI across 120,000+ practitioners.

"AI is the most effective enabler of the volume-to-value transition for nations."
Portrait of Pratim Das
02 · Avaiden · WealthAi · Striide · AWS · Microsoft · Amazon · Capgemini

Pratim Das

Founder · AI-Native Transformation & Delivery

Founder of Avaiden, an AI-native product, transformation and delivery studio. Also CTO at WealthAi, and Chairman & Founder of Striide. 25+ years building enterprise AI and data platforms at AWS, Microsoft, Amazon and Capgemini — leading the architects, engineers and delivery leaders behind some of the largest public-sector and regulated-industry AI programmes.

Specialises in turning AI ambition into shipped, governed, adopted production systems — and codifying every win into a reusable Commons that compounds across departments.

"We don't sell pilots. We commission the next department before we kick off the last one."
Portrait of Malika Malik
03 · Google · Microsoft · KPMG · Oxford Saïd · APPG AI

Malika Malik

AI Engineering & Adoption Lead

Founder of myAIcademy and former Generative AI Global Blackbelt at Google, where she shipped GenAI into the largest enterprises in EMEA. Previously AI Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft and Data Scientist at KPMG.

Guest lecturer in AI at Oxford Saïd Business School, former Expert Advisor to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI, and AI Mentor to the Government of India's Atal Innovation Mission. She turns hackathon sparks into adopted, learned-by-the-team capability.

"Adoption isn't a phase. It's the product."
Portrait of Izel Ersoy
04 · WealthAi · AthenosLabs · MyFO · Karmic

Izel Ersoy

Product Design, Strategy & Commercialisation

Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder of WealthAi, building AI agents for next-generation wealth management and private banking. Founding Partner and Product Consultant at AthenosLabs, shaping industries one company at a time.

Previously Product & Design Lead at MyFO, running product, design and engineering for a fintech platform reinventing family-office wealth management, and Product Designer at Karmic. Design-led product strategy paired with go-to-market instinct — she turns a proven capability into a service citizens actually want to use, and a proposition other governments will buy.

"A capability nobody adopts isn't a product. Design and commercial model decide that."
Why us, why now

We've shipped the playbook. Now we're packaging it.

Between the four of us: AI strategy at the board, GenAI engineering at the keyboard, delivery leadership in the room, and product design plus commercial model to make it stick. Pulse opens the door. Ignite proves it. Forge ships it. The Commons compounds it.