aboutus
Ascendry began as a practice in individual and team development, practicing assessment, coaching, and the deep work of helping leaders understand themselves. 10 years later, Azimuth was developed as the organizational counterpart: the systems, structures, and data that determine whether individual growth ever becomes organizational capability.
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For a long time, we ran them as two engines in parallel. What we learned by sitting across the table from the same executives and the same organizations, year after year is that they were never really separate. A leader’s self-awareness means little if the organization around them has no structure to receive it. And no organizational design, however elegant, survives contact with people who haven’t done the internal work.
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So we brought them together. Ascendry+Azimuth isn’t a rebrand. It’s a recognition that the work we’ve always done was one discipline wearing two names.
What Full-Spectrum Means
Most consulting relationships start narrow: an assessment here, a training there, a reorg somewhere else, each vendor solving its own slice, none of them talking to each other. Full-spectrum organizational development means one partner holding the whole system: the individual, the team, the structure, the data, and the culture that connects them. When those six pillars operate together instead of in isolation, change actually compounds instead of evaporating after the engagement ends.
Our Approach
We don’t just diagnose problems. We partner with leadership to address them at the root and build organizational capability that outlasts our involvement. That means we spend as much time on self-awareness as we do on org charts, because an organization rarely rises beyond the self-awareness of the people inside it.
Who We Work With
We partner with mid-to-large organizations building comprehensive people strategy, with C-suite executives and high-potential leaders who need honest assessment and real coaching, and with HR and People teams responsible for turning organizational development from an initiative into an operating discipline.
Meet The Team
Dr. Erika Weed, Ed.D.
Dr. Dick Loveless, Ed.D.
Dr. Erika Weed is the founder of Ascendry and specializes in emergency intervention for critical performers: the leaders whose performance matters most to an organization's stability.
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She believes every person she works with has more potential than their current performance shows. Most of her clients come to her because something is already breaking and the work quickly becomes about more than performance. Erika's expertise and thoughtful demeanor help her clients build self-awareness, personal control, and acceptance of themselves and the people around them. What follows is measurable: fewer counterproductive work behaviors, stronger performance, and, often to their own surprise, a renewed sense of purpose and drive.
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Professional Background
Erika founded Ascendry in 2015 to bring this same philosophy to the organizational level, not just the individual one. She designs and leads organizational development programs internationally, and researches how policy, procedure, and leadership changes actually land inside an organization, so transitions get built with real oversight instead of guesswork.
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Coaching Approach / Philosophy
Erika works from a simple premise: a leader's self-awareness means little if the organization around them has no structure to receive it. She spends as much time on self-awareness as she does on org charts, because an organization rarely rises beyond the self-awareness of the people inside it.
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Areas of Expertise
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Emergency Intervention
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Personality Assessment
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Team Coaching
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Executive Leader Coaching
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Self-Actualization
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Systems Design
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Education & Credentials
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Doctorate, Human and Organizational Learning — George Washington University, Washington, DC
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MBA — McColl School of Business, Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
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B.A., Integrated Marketing and Communication — Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC
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Certificate of Executive Coaching — McColl School of Business, Queens University of Charlotte
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Authorized Partner/Facilitator — Hogan Assessments
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Authorized Partner/Facilitator — Paradigm Personality Labs
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Authorized Partner/Facilitator — William L. Sparks & Associates LLC
Dr. Dick Loveless Jr., Ed.D., is President of Analytics at Azimuth, the research and analytics practice he co-founded with Dr. Erika Weed, Ed.D. Azimuth and Ascendry operate as one firm, with separate practices built to complement one
another: Azimuth handles research, measurement, and analysis, and Ascendry handles organizational development and talent.
Most recently a User Experience Researcher at Cisco, Dick designed and ran enterprise research and employee listening programs, and was one of four named information technology (IT) partners on Cisco's study of artificial intelligence (AI) and workforce transformation, published by Cisco in January 2026. Before Cisco, he spent 6 years in the wine and spirits trade as a research coordinator and Qualtrics programmer at OFFSITE Events and Spirits Marketing. Dick holds a Doctor of Education (Ed.D. in Organizational Learning, Leadership and Innovation from Wilmington University, a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology from Argosy University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Wesley College. His dissertation was an ethnographic case study of organizational
change.
Across 12+ years, Dick has combined research and analytics with storytelling and coaching. He builds instruments that surface what people inside an
organization already know but have not been asked, and reports findings in a form leaders can act on. At Azimuth, he runs open research programs, including the Hospitality Friction Survey, the AI Friction Survey, and The Leadership Mirror, and publishes the findings free to the field.