Growing without structure is an invitation to break down.
Revenue volume without process is accumulated risk. The company grows until disorganization becomes the brake on growth, and the founder becomes a hostage of their own operation.
Twenty years between the boardroomand the risk of being a partner
The mentor
Executive experience in multinationals and the growth of large operations, from auditing to regional director. Then, the trenches of entrepreneurship: partner in more than 12 companies, with a method tested in the field.
I
Founder and lead strategist.
André Lima
I built my career inside large operations. From accounting auditing to high performance retail, in companies moving hundreds of millions in revenue.
In entrepreneurship, I became a partner and professionalized more than 12 companies, from operations to strategy, from the inside, with real risk and the pain (and money) of someone with something to lose.
In every one, the pattern repeated. Companies with a market, a product, a team, but without management to sustain what they had built.
Ascend works exactly here. Installing management. So the business owner regains command of their own business, and the executive regains autonomy over their own calendar.
+14 YEARS
+R$ 100MM
+300 LEADERS
+20 COMPANIES
+100 MENTORING PROGRAMS
+1,000 HOURS
Active teaching at universities, business schools and executive programs.
II
Five principles that came from the operation, not from a bookshelf.
Management principles
Culture without ritual is just talk.
Values on the wall do not sustain behavior. What turns intent into daily practice are management rituals: meetings with an agenda, visible metrics, structured feedback.
A founder stuck in operations is a hostage founder.
When every decision goes through one person, the company does not grow, it depends. The founder's role is direction and structure, not solving one emergency after another.
Teams fail to execute for lack of method, not lack of will.
Most teams want to deliver. What is missing is clarity on the goal, a repeatable process and data driven follow up, not more motivation.
Data beats opinion, when someone has the courage to look.
Managing by gut feeling protects the ego and delays decisions. Metrics, rituals and clear ownership by role are the antidote to the opinion that costs money at the end of the month.
III
The origin of each belief
Growth without structure: I saw this as a partner in more than 12 companies. Market, product and team existed. What was missing was management to sustain what had been built. In several of them, the pattern repeated until it stopped working or turned into forced professionalization.
Culture without ritual: at Decathlon, as national leadership and recruitment trainer, with three directors reporting directly to me, I learned that culture is installed through ritual: recruitment, onboarding, feedback and performance rituals. Without that, the talk never sticks to the operation.
Hostage founder: across the 12 companies as a partner, the founder stuck in operations was the rule, not the exception. The company ran on shouting and one person's memory, until it could not hold anymore or decided to structure itself.
Data beating opinion: at PwC, in auditing and restructuring, I saw how much it costs to decide without numbers. The method I bring to Ascend was born from the clash between textbook theory and the reality of cash, team and deadlines.
Conclusion: in every case, the absence of method, not effort, was the common denominator. Ascend exists to install management where it is missing.
IV
What the career accumulated, layer by layer.
Professional path
- CORPORATE PATH
From auditing to regional director
Partner in more than 12 companies throughout his career.
Decathlon Brazil · Tok&Stok · Riachuelo
QuintoAndar · PwC · IBM
- ACADEMIC EDUCATION
Where the method was shaped
IESE Business School: Program Management Development (Class President 2023)
Fundação Dom Cabral: Board Certification Program
Board Academy: Board Certification
FIA: Business Consulting
University of La Verne (USA): Business Strategy
USP: Consumer Market / Retail
PUC Campinas: Business Administration
- PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS
The working tools
Triad Productivity Specialist: Tríade (Christian Barbosa)
Professional Mentoring Certification: Rocket Mentoring School
ICC International Certification: International Mentoring Community (2013)
Leadership and Management Cycle: France · Lille
Systemic NLP: Iluminatta Business
Hoffman Process: Hoffman Center
- INSTITUTIONAL WORK
Where the agenda gets decided
Member of the Impact and Future Vision Committee: Board Academy
Regional Director: Brazilian HR Association
- FACILITATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Training the trainers
Professor at Enora Leaders
Professor at Rocket Mentoring School
Mentor at the Nós Por Elas Program
V
What sustains the delivery
Life outside work is not a rest from work. It is what sustains the capacity to work with quality.
Sport
Campinas. Physical activity and tennis: reading the game, tactical adjustment, mental reset. Sport teaches what management requires: preparation, reading the scenario and execution under pressure.
Diving
Advanced PADI diver: planning, checklists, protocol. Environments where improvisation costs dearly. Discipline and checks before action.
International experience
Australia: exposure, no safety net, a new language. Learning to adapt and to decide with incomplete information.
Technology
Code, out of curiosity: understanding before hiring. Not to become a developer, but to speak the same language as the people who build systems and digital processes.
VI
90 minutes · Report in 48h · R$ 2,500 with full credit toward the next product.