About
Ascend Planning Solutions
Planning Expertise Built Around Your Business
Senior-level Workday Adaptive Planning expertise. A better consulting experience. A planning process your team can actually own.
At Ascend Planning Solutions, we help finance and HR leaders get real value from Workday Adaptive Planning by building planning processes around the way their organizations actually work.
Whether you're implementing Adaptive Planning for the first time, fixing a model that has outgrown its original design, or looking for experienced support after go-live, we bring the senior-level expertise to help you move forward with confidence.
Why We Built Ascend Planning Solutions
We started Ascend Planning Solutions after experiencing the traditional consulting model firsthand. We saw talented consultants and good technology fail to deliver the value clients expected because the engagement wasn't built around the client's business. Clients were left with undocumented models, inconsistent support, and systems they still couldn't confidently manage after go-live.
We believed there was a better way.
We built Ascend Planning Solutions around a simple commitment: bring senior-level experience to every project, stay focused on the client's business, and deliver solutions that create real business value.
That means you work with experienced consultants who understand both Workday Adaptive Planning and the business decisions your planning process needs to support.
We Start With Your Business, Not the System
Workday Adaptive Planning is a powerful platform, but the technology is only part of the solution.
We start by understanding how your organization operates, what drives your financial performance, and where your current planning process is creating friction. From there, we design and build the model around your business, not the other way around.
Our partnership can span the full planning journey, from implementation and optimization to post-go-live support and enablement.
And our goal isn't to create a system that requires us forever.
Our goal is to build a planning process your team understands, can manage, and can confidently use as your organization grows.
Experience That Helps You Avoid the Common Pitfalls
We bring deep, hands-on Workday Adaptive Planning experience across implementation, optimization, and ongoing advisory work.
Over the years, we've seen what can happen when planning solutions aren't designed with the right foundation. We've seen:
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Models that were never properly documented
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Systems designed around the software instead of the business
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Consulting partners who disappear after go-live
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Teams that invested in Adaptive Planning but still rely on Excel
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Planning processes that can't adapt when the business changes
That experience matters.
It allows us to recognize potential problems early, make informed decisions about your planning environment, and build solutions designed for long-term success.
Meet Our Team
Meegan Addy
Founding Partner
Meegan Addy has been a Workday Adaptive Planning consultant for 9 years, with 15 prior years of Corporate FP&A experience with industries such as financial services, professional services, and not-for-profit organizations. Her expertise includes project management, architecture/design, training, and optimization. She has managed large-scale implementation projects and teams around the globe, serving clients across healthcare, SAAS, not-for-profit, financial, and professional services industries. Meegan is an enthusiastic champion of Workday Adaptive Planning and works diligently to ensure her clients have smooth and successful implementations.
James O'Leary
Managing Partner
Since 2020, James O'Leary has lived and breathed Workday Adaptive Planning. He has over 80 successful projects in industries such as SaaS, Higher Education, Non-Profit, and Professional Services. With expertise at each phase of the implementation lifecycle, from planning to development, James is excited to serve clients and push the boundaries of Workday Adaptive Planning with the team at Ascend Planning Solutions.
Amy Kee, CPA
Partner
Amy Kee's more than twenty-year career began as an auditor in public accounting and progressed through accounting and finance roles for large companies in the fields of retail, software, and manufacturing. After years of being an Adaptive power user in these roles, she became a consultant in 2019, implementing Adaptive for clients in software, life sciences, manufacturing, finance and not-for-profit. Having been in the FP&A space herself, Amy is passionate about making the FP&A professional's job easier and more efficient.
Courtney Mashhoon
Partner
As a certified Workday Adaptive Planning Implementer, Courtney Mashhoon has successfully executed over 100 implementations and optimizations, reducing planning cycles by 50%. Her 13-year career in accounting and finance features corporate experience in manufacturing, telecommunications, technology, SaaS & Healthcare. She is passionate about delivering high-quality financial reports, strategic planning, analysis and modeling, and providing decision-support to business leaders.
Gianna Montini
Partner
Gianna Montini has been fully dedicated to Workday Adaptive Planning since 2019. She has experience across Professional Services, Non-Profit, Saas, Higher Education, and Healthcare industries. She specializes in systems architecture and design, multi-system integrations, and optimizing budget processes within Adaptive Planning. Gianna is also an expert in training client teams and new consultants alike. She has developed extensive training programs to onboard every type of user to Workday Adaptive Planning and looks forward to bringing this expertise to the team at Ascend.
Sarah Swedock
Senior Director of Client Transformation
Sarah Swedock has over 11 years of experience engaging, managing, configuring, and deploying the Adaptive Planning tool across diverse industries, including Not-for-Profit, Bio-Tech, Associations, Healthcare, Professional Services, Life Sciences, Higher Education, and Manufacturing. Her focus on identifying and implementing best practice and standardized models has enabled clients to achieve scalable and effective financial planning and analysis processes, enhancing the client's operational efficiency and alignment with strategic objectives. She ensures that clients benefit from accurate, efficient, and strategically aligned financial planning solutions, driving their success in an ever-evolving landscape.
RJ Romero
Director of Integrations
RJ Romero is an integrations leader and trusted technical advisor with deep expertise in Workday Adaptive Planning and enterprise connectivity. He has led over 100 projects linking Workday Adaptive Planning to systems like ERPs, CRMs, and HR platforms—always with a focus on clarity, performance, and long-term scalability. In addition to Adaptive, RJ brings broad experience across the Workday platform, including Reporting, Studio, and Prism Analytics. Known for making complex technical concepts easy to understand, RJ helps teams work together smoothly while keeping the big picture front and center.
Brian Favorat
Senior Account Executive
With over 15 years of experience at the intersection of finance and technology, Brian Favorat is a Senior Account Executive at Ascend Planning Solutions and a trusted strategic advisor to public, private, and not-for-profit organizations navigating the complexities of financial planning and performance management. Before joining Ascend, he led the Workday Adaptive Planning practice at a national advisory firm, building and delivering implementations for clients nationwide.
Brian helps leadership teams reimagine their financial processes, align people and technology, and build the infrastructure needed to make smarter, faster decisions. He brings a full-lifecycle perspective, from system selection through deployment, optimization, and long-term support, connecting business strategy to measurable outcomes.
His experience spans higher education, not-for-profit, life sciences, SaaS, agriculture, retail, real estate, professional services, and distribution. He is passionate about helping organizations elevate their planning potential and unlock the full value of their technology investments.
Let's Find Your Next Opportunity
You don't have to know exactly what's wrong with your planning process before you reach out.
Start with a Planning Assessment and have a candid conversation with us about what's working, what's getting in the way, and where you have the greatest opportunity to improve.
Let's build a planning process that can grow with your business.