Benjamin Encz

Ashby Culture

When the Ashby team met for the first time, we took a moment to reflect on and codify the attributes we value most in those we hire, and on the operating principles that guide our work. We'd like to share that with you here.

Ashby’s Operating Principles

Alan

Altura

aronow.io

Assured is a claims automation insurtech backed by leading Silicon Valley investors.

Assured

Astronomer

Attentive

Aurora Solar

Aven

Our camps give kids both a place to start and plenty of room to grow outdoors as they build skills in a wide range adventure sports, including mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, rock climbing and paddling.

Avid4 Adventure

Benchling

iPaaS integration platform with a worldwide reach

Boomi

Boulevard

Brightline brings virtual behavioral and mental health care to kids and teens, with a focus on also supporting families. 

Brightline

The Browser Company

Calm

Census

Character.AI

Clay

Clever

CloudTrucks

Coder is a remote infrastructure development platform that makes working with code easier than ever. Coder enables everyone from industry rookies to experts to develop code faster than ever before, using templatized starting points and ultra-secure workspaces.

Coder

Cognition Labs

Cohere

Cointracker

Color

Convictional uses technology to make logistics easier for retailers and their suppliers by automating supplier integration, onboarding, and merchandising.

Convictional

Costanoa Ventures

Enterprise-grade accounting, audit, and tax software for your digital assets

Cryptio

Cursor

Dave

Decimal

Deel is payroll for modern business. No matter where you're hiring, Deel helps customers run payroll, supporting 150+ countries with hundreds of worldwide experts. Deel helps their customers know that hiring, paying, and managing stayed compliant and easy in their all-in-one platform.

Deel

Deepnote

Deliveroo

Docker

Dune

Duolingo

EightSleep is more than a mattress company - it's a suite of products devoted to sleep fitness. Their goal is to make sure that your sleep is as high-performing as you are, helping you meet and exceed the bar for excellence in your waking life. Athletes and scientists alike love their range of highly customizable sleep tech because it helps them live healthier.

EightSleep

ElevenLabs

Flock Safety

Form Energy

Format One

FullStory is an insight platform that aims to create a more perfect web experience by capturing website data to give clients like GNC, Carvana, and Lowe’s greater insight into how users access their websites.

FullStory

Galileo

Gorgias

Granola

GrowthAssistant

HackerOne

Harvey

Help Scout

incident.io

Infinite Lambda

Ironclad

January transforms the lives of borrowers by bringing humanity to consumer finance. Their data-driven products empower financial institutions to streamline collections, providing borrowers with straightforward and compassionate solutions to regain financial stability and control over their lives. 

January

Juni

Kustomer

Leapsome

Lemonade

Lime

Linear

Linktree

Lovable

Machinify

Marqeta is a modern card issuing platform dedicated to empowering innovators to launch their products to the world. They have over a decade of experience as a trusted, high-tech solution for builders who need simple, scalable payment solutions.

Marqeta

Mastodon

Mercury

Metaview

Modern Treasury

Monte Carlo is a Series D data observability company helping its customers accelerate the adoption of data to eliminate downtime. 

Monte Carlo

Multiverse

NETGEAR

Notion is the go-to for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, blending everyday work apps into one. It serves as an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, task management, and project management. 

Notion

Compensation software that offers 5,000+ companies clarity for every pay decision.

OpenComp

Opendoor

Plato

PostHog

PostHog is an open source analytics platform. Their product is used by product, engineering, and marketing teams to understand user behavior, including product analytics, session recording, user paths, a/b testing, heatmaps, and more. The suite, founded through Y Combinator in 2020, has since been installed by over 10,000 companies.

Pragma Platform

ProAmpac

Pulley

QFinds

Quora

Rad AI

Ramp

Readme

Recruiting Pundit

Reddit

Replit

Resend

Retool

peer network for senior in-house resourcing leaders

RL100

Scratchpad

With over 2k clients and 20+ years of experience, Sequoia Consulting Group  is a services, tech, advisory business that provides clients with a platform for rich analytics.

Sequoia

Shelby Wolpa Consulting

Shopify

Sift

Snowflake

Snyk

Abhik Pramanik

Kyra ran our first holiday book exchange, and it's been a hit with the team (to the point people mentioned it in our 1:1s). I added some photos from our recent meetups.


How we use efficient and deliberate communication at Ashby to keep Slack notifications and meetings to a minimum, focus 36h out of a 40h week, and have fun along the way 😀.


How Thoughtful Communication Makes Us Unreasonably Productive

Engineering Updates

Recruiting Articles

Product Updates

Anum Hussain

My first day at HubSpot coincided with the kickoff of the Inbound Marketing Conference in 2011, back when a few hundred marketers gathered in a small hotel and the idea of a company conference was still an experiment. Over the next five years, I watched it grow into what is now [INBOUND](https://www.inbound.com/), a flagship event drawing 12,000+ folks to the Boston Convention Center each year to hear big ideas, new product launches, and celebrity speakers like Trevor Noah and Reese Witherspoon.

Over the course of those five years I went from working behind-the-scenes (registration desk, mic runner, directions usher) and helping prepare speakers to taking the stage regularly myself. I was ranked a top-five speaker by attendees three years in a row, which led to invitations to speak globally at events like Unbounce in London, Growth Hackers in San Francisco, SEOZone in Istanbul, and CTA Conference in Vancouver. Through these experiences I became obsessive about what makes a session great — the narrative flow, the audience engagement, the structure of the talk. I later became a professional speaker coach and ghostwrote entire keynote decks for executive leaders.

But when I joined the talent and people space through my role as Head of Content at Ashby, I kept hearing the same feedback about existing events in not just our industry, but all business sectors as the sheer number of events available has multiplied:

* “I see the same speakers at every conference.”
* “I spent a lot of my learning budget, but I didn’t really learn anything new.”
* “It sounded good, but it didn’t change how I work.”

I don’t think that’s because the industry lacks smart people. **I think it’s because of how most conferences are built**.

- - -

## An In-House Model for Designing Agendas

Traditionally, events rely on open calls for speakers. The loudest voices (or the ones with the most time to build a polished deck) submit proposals. Conference teams then play Tetris, fitting those talks into a day of programming and hoping it coheres.

But **some of the most innovative hiring workflows, thoughtful RecOps systems, and impactful talent strategies come from practitioners doing the work every single day — *and those practitioners are busy***. Keeping up with economic fluctuations and AI adoption is challenging enough; being expected to also turn your work into compelling narratives and structure into talk tracks is simply not in scope. So when we conceived of Ashby One, I knew we had to architect it differently.

- - -

## Start With the Work, Not the Submissions

Ashby has a unique vantage point. We work with many of the top talent teams in the world from [fast-growing companies](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ashbyhq_brex-analyzed-over-35000-customers-to-determine-activity-7408916543243374593-ZFXT/) building entirely new operating models for hiring. Through customer conversations, community threads, social listening, and our proprietary dataset spanning millions of hiring moments, we have a living pulse on what’s actually shifting in talent acquisition.

**That’s where the Ashby One agenda begins**. Not with “Who wants to speak?” But with: "*What conversations does the industry actually need right now?*"

A select few of us personally craft the agenda based on those inputs. We pressure-test it internally and turn to our Sales and CS partners to review it and scope: Who is truly doing this work at a high level and how do we map the right expert to the right topic?

We also deliberately scan for a mix of voices across company size, geography, talent leadership and RecOps expertise, lived experience, and career stage. **Recruiting is one of the most diverse professions in the world. Our industry programming should reflect that**.

- - -

## We Co-Build Every Session

We also don’t ask our speakers to show up with a fully formed talk. We often hear initial hesitation when we reach out to experts in their domain. They’re nervous about the major time suck it can be and don’t want to spend weekends stuck in presentation decks. Instead, every Ashby One session is co-built in-house. My content team partners closely with each speaker to:

* Refine the topic so it’s sharp and relevant
* Pull out the strongest insights from their real-world experience
* Shape the narrative arc of the session
* Build slides with our in-house design team
* Run speaker coaching and dry runs

By the time someone steps onto the stage, they’re prepared, confident, and excited to share something meaningful.

This model isn’t common. It’s also why our speakers often tell us it’s one of the best event experiences they’ve had. And why feedback from our audience at the inaugural Ashby One in 2025 was so strong we’re bringing the conference to two cities this year (hello [London](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one/2026/london)!).

- - -

## Design the Day for Energy, Not Endurance

Ashby One is built around three tracks:

1. Talent Leadership  
2. Recruiting Operations  
3. Ashby Labs  

Talent Leaders and RecOps practitioners share a mission, but they don’t share the same day-to-day decisions. One is navigating executive alignment, headcount strategy, and talent density. The other is designing systems, enabling teams, and turning strategy into workflow. And the partnership across the two is essential. Meanwhile Ashby Labs is a dedicated product space where practice and interaction replace observation.

Within and across these tracks, we vary format intentionally.

### Product Keynote

We open Ashby One with our product keynote on what we’ve been building and where we’re heading next. This session is designed to ground the day in what’s possible when recruiting teams have a modern system built for the way hiring has evolved.

You’ll see the latest feature launches and product updates, along with real examples of how customers are using Ashby to achieve hiring excellence. We’ll also share how we’re thinking about AI across the platform — not as a collection of experiments, but as an integrated layer across the entire hiring process designed to help teams move from exploration to operational rigor.

Finally, we’ll pull back the curtain on our product philosophy: how we organize teams, how we approach building software for talent organizations, and how customer insight shapes the roadmap.

### Panels

Our panels are designed to stay current. Instead of locking topics months in advance, we build them to reflect the reality of the market in the weeks leading up to the event. At every Ashby One you can expect our pillar panels:

* Our **Hiring Excellence panel** evolves alongside the challenges enterprise teams are navigating in real time.  
* Our **Talent Trends panel** pairs proprietary insights from millions of hiring data points with leaders who live inside those numbers every day.  

### Presentations and Fireside Chats

Some ideas need structure and depth. Our in-depth presentations and structured fireside chats give space for a couple of experts to unpack an emerging shift in the space. These are focused and strategic to help inspire meaningful change within organizations across (think Quality of Hire, AI innovation, and more). And the format adapts to the speaker - some are more comfortable delivering a 40-minute session while others prefer conversation to guide them. Either way, we include visuals and prep the content to come alive intentionally.

### Lightning Talks

Energy matters.

Our Lightning Talks are ten minutes each, split across Talent Leadership and RecOps. In the time many conferences give you one voice, you’ll hear from at least three. These sessions are tightly scoped around specific programs and workflows. They’re designed for velocity and exposure, giving attendees more ideas without cognitive overload. And they’re a whole lot of fun, inspired by the lightning talks our employees give internally at our annual company offsites.

### Build-a-thon

And then, we build. For our RecOps professionals, we close the day not with theory, but with action. Our Build-a-thon invites practitioners to experiment together in a creative, low-stakes environment. Because building alongside peers is often more powerful than listening to another talk. What more beautiful way to network than to co-work?

### Ashby Labs

Ashby Labs is one of the product-focused experiences at Ashby One, built for deeper learning, hands-on exploration, real conversations, and practical takeaways you can use right away. Whether attendees are evaluating Ashby or already running it day to day, Labs is the place to learn real workflows and leave with clear next steps. This includes Labs stage sessions, 1:1 Labs meetings that can be booked, and direct access to Ashby’s product experts, customer stories, and key partners.

![](/images/agenda-design_all_blog-1-.png)

- - -

## Final Thoughts

Building an agenda this way takes more effort, but we believe it matters. When people spend a day at a conference, they deserve more than a set of polished talks. They deserve r**eal ideas, inspiring workflows, and tangible context they can take back into their work the next morning**.

That’s why we’re so intentional about how we source both topics and speakers. Many of the people you’ll see on the Ashby One stage aren’t regulars on the conference circuit. Instead, they’re spending their days building the systems, programs, and operating models we’re talking about. Our job is to work closely with them to shape those experiences into sessions that are clear, practical, and genuinely useful.

From where we sit, these are some of the most thoughtful leaders and practitioners in the industry right now. Much of the work they’re sharing is still being actively built inside their organizations and will likely show up as case studies and broader conference conversations in the years ahead.

This is also very much a team effort. The agenda comes together through input from across Ashby: our community, our sales and customer teams, the data we see across the platform, and the incredible work of our marketing team who help turn those ideas into a great experience on the day. So taking this moment to say thank you to everyone that has contributed so far this year and in the years to come.

**If you can join us in [San Francisco](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one/2026/san-francisco) or [London](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one/2026/london) this year, we’d love to see you there.**

A behind-the-scenes look at how our team builds the Ashby One agenda, from sourcing real practitioner insights to co-creating sessions designed for immediate value.

Inside the Ashby One Agenda: Why We Build Sessions Differently

A walkthrough of how Ashby sees management vs leadership and our philosophy around it. 

Ashby's Leadership Principles

In just over a year since our Series C, Ashby has scaled from 1,300 to over 2,700 customers, grown revenue by 135% year-over-year, and increased the number of interviews scheduled through Ashby by 170%. We achieved that growth with best-in-class efficiency — a burn multiple of under 1x — leaving most of our Series C capital untouched.

That combination of rapid growth and discipline sparked pre-emptive interest from investors.

Today, I’m excited to share that we’ve raised a $50 million Series D, led by Mark McLaughlin at Alkeon with co-lead support from existing investor Lachy Groom and participation from F-Prime, Elad Gil, Gaingels, and other new and returning backers. While the round was significantly oversubscribed, $50 million allows us to maintain a healthy valuation (2x our Series C), stay disciplined on dilution, and invest meaningfully in our next phase of growth.

I first connected with [Mark](https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmclaughlin16/) in 2021 and was immediately struck by his deep understanding of the HR tech space. Alkeon has backed a number of Ashby customers — including UiPath, Confluent, Zip, AuditBoard, Deepgram, and Verkada — which gave Mark a unique lens into the challenges and opportunities talent teams face as they scale. As a later-stage investor, he brings a perspective that’s increasingly relevant as we grow Ashby into a generational business. We treat adding investors with the same [scrutiny as hiring a key executive](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles#5---be-frustratingly-patient-about-hiring), and after getting to know Mark over several years, I’m excited to work with him in this next chapter.

## Starting with a thank you

It goes without saying that none of this would be possible without the amazing support from our customers. Customer love has been one of the biggest drivers of Ashby’s growth—and this was put nicely by our investors’ observations as they surveyed customers for this round:

> “We’ve watched Ashby evolve from a comprehensive applicant tracking system (ATS) to what it is today: the leading intelligent hiring OS powering the most sophisticated talent teams in tech (and increasingly beyond). Through it all, the signal in the noise has been how loved Ashby is by talent teams.” 
>
> — Mark Mclaughlin,  General Partner at Alkeon Capital Management
>
> “Ashby is clearly setting the pace in recruiting software. Not only through rapid product innovation but through a deeply thoughtful approach to applying AI. It’s rare to see a company so aligned with the needs of its community while also defining the future of its category.” 
>
> — Lorenzo Thione, Managing Partner at Gaingels.

Beyond excitement for what we’re building, you all have actively helped shape Ashby through feedback, feature requests, early pilots, and honest conversations about where the product should go next. We’re incredibly grateful for the level of partnership you’ve brought to this journey. Expanding the Ashby community will continue to be a major focus for us going forward.

I also want to give a huge shoutout to the Ashby team. We’ve now crossed 220 employees across 20+ countries, and I couldn’t be more excited about the caliber of execution I see across every function. Customers, Investors, and Partners frequently tell me how surprised they are by how much we’ve been able to build with a relatively small team. Internally, it’s been rewarding to see Ashby become a true talent magnet, letting us grow while maintaining a very high talent bar.

## Why now? Three shifts reshaping recruiting

When we started Ashby 6.5 years ago, we observed that TA teams were becoming increasingly sophisticated. Recruiting Operations was growing in relevance, data was becoming central to how TA teams worked, and many teams were investing more in tools and automation.

We saw a gap open up between what TA teams needed and the tools offered on the market. We built Ashby to fill that gap.

Today, we are seeing a number of forces in the market that are once again accelerating the overall pace of change TA teams are facing:

### 1 | AI usage is moving from novelty to necessity

[Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4480707) now projects that by 2026, more than 60% of recruiting teams will rely on generative-AI copilots to manage high-volume tasks. Yet most AI pilots stall because the underlying data is scattered across point solutions. Platforms that already hold well-structured, end-to-end recruiting data are uniquely positioned to unlock AI’s full value, turning large-language models from clever demos into daily workflow.

### 2 | Quality of Hire displaces vanity funnel metrics

Talent density is the metric that boards are increasingly paying close attention to over time-to-fill. [McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/increasing-your-return-on-talent-the-moves-and-metrics-that-matter) links top performers as being 800% more productive than average performers in the same role; [LinkedIn](https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-solutions/global/en_us/c/pdfs/GRT16_GlobalRecruiting_100815.pdf) reports that Quality of Hire is the most important metric to HR professionals, but only 33% of respondents felt confident in their reporting methodology. Measuring and communicating Quality of Hire and linking it to talent density is shifting from HR aspiration to a business expectation.

### 3 | Hiring teams need an operating framework that keeps pace with change

Hiring plans now swing quarter-to-quarter, technology is changing rapidly, and the types of roles companies need are starting to show shifts, too. TA leaders must recalibrate roles, processes, and headcount in real time while still raising the talent bar. They need a practical framework and a tool with the flexibility and scale to adapt in real-time to those changes.

Supporting you in addressing these shifts is a big priority across both our product and our customer-facing teams. That’s why these shifts make up a big portion of our focus areas after this round. Let’s dive into these next!

## Where this Series D takes us

### Investing in the most powerful, compliant, and thoughtful AI capabilities in the market and the fastest evolving product in TA tech

One of the promises we make to you as an Ashby customer is that you can expect fast and relevant product innovation from us.

We strongly believe that advancements in AI are bringing huge changes to how TA teams operate. In response, we’ve already added a lot of product and engineering bandwidth to ensure that Ashby customers are the first to benefit from the efficiency gains of real-world AI applications.

Ashby is uniquely positioned to embed AI where it truly matters because we already provide an All-In-One platform that delivers ATS, CRM, Scheduling and Analytics.

Today, [AI in Ashby](http://ashby.ai) already unlocks ways of operating that would have been hard to imagine just two years ago. Here are just a few examples:

* **Enabling you to objectively and thoroughly evaluate thousands of candidates in a fraction of the time through [AI Application Review](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-assisted-application-review)**. A feature that has already processed millions of resumes, letting recruiters triage in minutes, not days; [Jim Miller reviewed 1,500 applications in six hours](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/ai-assisted-application-review-in-practice), a task that would previously have taken several days.
* **Complete and immediate context on every aspect of the candidate journey and broader pipeline with [AI Candidate Assistant](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-candidate-assistant)** which surfaces next steps, salary expectations, or interview themes instantly. Over 50% of customers already use Ashby AI in daily workflows and adoption is continuing to increase rapidly.
* **Communicate thoughtfully with candidates in a fraction of the time with AI [feedback summaries](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-generated-feedback-summaries-for-interviews) and [tokens](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-generated-feedback-summary)**. These help recruiters write thoughtful, personalized candidate update emails and rejections based directly on scorecards, turning a 15-minute task into a 30-second review. 
* **Quickly generate insights with [AI Reporting Assistant](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-assisted-report-builder)**. This makes the advanced reporting in Ashby a lot more accessible to all types of users.

Going forward we’re continuing to make major investments in AI. Our native AI Notetaker will be launching Q3, helping draft feedback forms and bringing the rich data of all conversations your team is having in Ashby and making them easily searchable and accessible to all existing AI capabilities.

AI Talent Rediscovery, launching later this year, will automatically surface candidates across the ATS and CRM who could be a strong fit for newly opened roles, unlocking a historically hard-to-tap source of talent.

Today, most of our AI functionality is assistive. Behind the scenes, we’re laying the groundwork for autonomous & agentic AI features that automate multiple steps of complex tasks - there’s a lot more to come on this front in the coming months!

Across all of our AI investments, we’re continuing to build on top of our [five pillars of responsible AI development](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ai#responsible-ai): Accountability, Transparency, Fairness, Safety, and Privacy & Security.

We want all of our AI functionality to live up to our high product standards and ensure it delivers immediate value to the TA teams we’re supporting.

As Tommy Hansen of Juniper Square says:

> “Ashby’s AI really enables us to get back to the roots of recruiting. A lot of people feel like AI’s going to take the human factor out. I have an opposing view on that. I think we’re going to be able to get back to why we all wanted to become recruiters. Ashby's leading the category in AI, and I think you're all just getting started.”

As always, our roadmap extends well beyond AI functionality. We are continuing to deliver on our “all-in-one and best-in-class” promise with continuous improvements across ATS, CRM, Scheduling Automation, and Analytics. Your ongoing feedback is leading to multiple meaningful product updates each week (you can see a full list of recent releases [here](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates)).

As we have in the past, we intend to stay close to topics that are top of mind for the TA community and address these quickly. As just one example, we’ll be launching a suite of tools to address the increase in candidate fraud many TA teams are seeing in Q3.

We will also ensure that our product updates remain relevant across all of our customer segments. We are adding a lot of functionality for our largest Enterprise customers; at the same time, we’re ensuring that ease of use and streamlined onboarding continue to improve for our earliest stage customers.

### Doubling down on Customer Success

In our [last fundraising round](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c), we made a note that[ Customer Success was a big ongoing priority for us](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/customer-success).

> "Excellent customer success is notoriously hard to scale. We’re committed to spending the time, energy, and money to make it happen."
>
> — Excerpt from [“Announcing Ashby’s $30M Series C”](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c)

Today, we are proud of the progress we have made in delivering a highly differentiated (and loved) experience for customers. We’re now doubling down on our Customer Success function, through Professional Services for complex roll-outs, publishing weekly Customer Education content, and this month introducing 24/7 human support. We’ve also launched our Ashby Experts program, which provides a network of TA professionals who are deeply skilled at implementing Ashby.

At Ashby, we think of Customer Success as an immediate extension of our product, and we will continue to invest in it as such.

### Investing in our Enterprise Segment

When we started Ashby we saw a gap in ATS options for Enterprise customers. They needed to choose between a solution with solid UX that their hiring teams would want to engage with and the customizability that is required to run a large-scale, complex, recruiting operation.

With Ashby, we’ve aimed to bridge that gap. Our Enterprise segment has grown 123% year-over-year. Customers like Shopify and Snowflake are benefiting from Ashby’s advanced customization capabilities and our turnkey [Workday integration](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/new-integration-workday).

Our Workday integration is a great example of how Ashby can seamlessly fit into a complex Enterprise tech stack. This quarter, we are launching similar integrations with UKG and ADP.

Across both Product and Customer Success, we’re continuing to make investments that make Ashby the ATS of choice for forward-thinking Enterprise TA teams.

### Operationalizing Quality of Hire

TA dashboards revolving around time-to-fill, offer-acceptance rates, and cost-per-hire remain useful but deeply incomplete. Because the simple truth is: hiring the wrong person is expensive. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that a single bad hire can cost up to 30% of that person’s first-year salary, putting director-level misfires comfortably north of $60,000.

To tackle this, Ashby is approaching it in stages – to date, a lightweight and customizable survey that requests feedback from hiring managers at 30, 90, and 180 days that then feeds the data straight into Ashby Analytics. Usage of this feature is up 150% since January, and 25% of enterprise customers run live programs. [Flock Safety](https://www.ashbyhq.com/customers/flock-safety) boosted 90-day confidence scores 22% by adding an early technical screen.

I’m excited that we’ve been able to be a significant driver for the adoption of Quality of Hire programs, which historically have been very hard to get off the ground. This will remain a major area of investment for us going forward.

### Expanding our Ashby community programs

From our earliest days, the Ashby community has been a priority and grown organically, from our RecOps Community Slack and customer referrals to meetups and feedback calls. What started informally has become one of our strongest signals of long-term impact: when our customers level up, so do we.

This year, we made our biggest investment in community to date. [Ashby One](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one/2025), our first customer conference, brought together hundreds of practitioners in San Francisco across a week of sessions, panels, dinners, live streams, and experiential events. We’ve launched new cohorts of our Recruiting Operations and Hiring Excellence courses, created certifications to help customers grow their careers, and expanded our Talent Trends reporting to help teams benchmark where they stand. Our new Ashby Customer Expert (ACE) chapters—live now in Denver and Seattle—give local leaders the tools to host community dinners, share learnings, and stay connected beyond the screen.

Looking ahead, we’re using Series D funding to deepen that investment: expand our ACE chapter reach, scaling our education programs, and growing partnerships with groups like Talent Collective and Growth by Design. 

## Culture as Compounding Advantage

Since our Series C, we’ve achieved significant growth in key metrics such as our customer base, revenue, product usage and product velocity. The increase in metrics is an important part of the story, but the Ashby culture explains how it is possible. Ashby’s [Operating Principles](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles) - from Apply First Principles to Thoughtful Communication - drive daily choices and help us to attract candidates who resonate with these principles. We value written, considered communication over meetings, protect focused time, and are frustratingly patient about hiring (and closely monitor our Quality of Hire metrics). 

The result is a team of 220 people across 20+ countries with zero attrition on the original executive leadership team, and a deliberate culture that allows for thoughtful connection and enables everyone to do their best work. If that sounds like your kind of place, good news: [We’re hiring across all teams](https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers).

## Back to Building!

I have touched on this as part of every fundraising round: While it’s exciting to top up the bank account and draw some additional attention to the business, fundraising does not lead to ongoing success in and of itself.

At Ashby, we like to keep distractions to a minimum. So today we’ll briefly enjoy this milestone, but at the same time, we’re already back to work with a strong focus on further improving your overall experience with us.

Once again, thank you for your trust - we’re excited to accelerate our product, community, and most importantly, the impact our users have using Ashby every day.

An update from CEO Benjamin Encz on Ashby's Series D round of funding. 

Announcing Ashby’s $50 Million Series D

Kelsey Peterson

I drafted this reflection the week before [Ashby announced its Series D](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-d) on 22 July 2025. Fundraises create a natural moment to reflect – and it’s due time for me to capture where our Customer Success organization stands and where we’re headed. I’ll continue to update this post as we grow, but now feels like the right time to articulate the promises we make to customers, the expectations we set with the team, and how the two thread together to shape our next 12–18 months of investment.

## My Perspective

I’ve spent over a decade in Customer Success roles at HubSpot, in the People Analytics world, and now at Ashby. I have come to hold strong opinions about what makes for an excellent CSM — some of which depart from the industry norm. ​​Too often, CSMs are cast as part Account Manager, part Relationship Manager. At best, this doesn’t fully solve for the customer. At worst, it’s a thinly veiled upsell strategy.

In my experience, the best CS orgs live at the intersection of 1) market insight, 2) product expertise, and 3) customer context. When these three circles overlap, customers experience what I think of as the spotlight effect: their team’s work shines because someone backstage knows exactly where the beam belongs. This belief drives how we’ve built the team at Ashby:

> “Customers should get what they need just in time… We have to meet them not just where they are, but where they’re going.”

 Every CSM is hired for curiosity and product acumen. Within a year, they’re true experts who can oscillate effortlessly between tactical improvements and C-Suite conversations.

![](/images/great-cs-at-ashby.png)

## **Market → Product → Customer**

While I maintain that the spotlight effect is an imperative agnostic of industry, it’s especially critical for Talent Teams.

### Market

Talent Acquisition trends move fast — and often contradict themselves. One quarter: *hire* *300 engineers yesterday*. The next: *freeze everything and justify every role*. McKinsey calls it the *yo‑yo economy of talent*. It’s real, painful, and expensive (reactive recruiting can cost 40% more per hire). The reality is that Customer Success is kneecapped from truly helping customers unless we're deeply familiar with the customers’ world. A good CSM should be able to explain to a Series B founder in San Francisco why their compensation ratios look different from a FinTech in Berlin — no deck required. This level of fluency only comes from being a student of the market: reading analyst notes, sure, but – more importantly – taking the time to learn from TA folks directly (and ultimately understand patterns across the talent landscape).

### Product

Our job is to help customers adopt Ashby in ways that directly support their business outcomes (thank you [Casey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyfroberts/) for connecting the [Hiring Excellence Framework](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework) to our customer outcomes framework). To do this requires mastering every corner of Ashby, from advanced scheduling rules to the statistical underpinnings of Quality of Hire dashboards. But fluency alone isn’t enough. We anticipate how features land in real hiring environments. New alerting logic? We model what happens when a Hiring Manager ignores Slack. New benchmark report? We begin to shape the board-level narrative. It’s a muscle we’re continuing to build — because even the best features don’t drive impact on their own. A (slightly brutal) reminder from Gartner: 75% of SaaS features are underutilized at renewal. Does every customer need to use every feature to see value? No – that’d be Ashby-centric and not customer-centric. But it is our job to ensure customers are equipped to get the most out of the functionality that supports their goals.

### Customer Context

Finally, none of this matters if we don’t understand the day-to-day reality of any given organization. A Director of Recruiting might care about Quality of Hire, while their team is laser-focused on speed. When priorities seem misaligned (or are), CSMs must lead with curiosity and candor to drive clarity – better to ask one question too many times than one too few. With greater alignment, our Customer Success Team helps customers focus on what matters most.

![](/images/ashby-great-cs-bad-cs.png)

When these three lenses overlap, the experience feels effortless, like a well-lit stage. As an audience member, you don’t think about the spotlight operator – you simply see the actor in perfect clarity. When one lens is missing, however, the spotlight drifts. 

Our precision in CS keeps the focus where it should be.

## What We’re Building (and Why It’s Different)

We could’ve followed the standard SaaS playbook: strict ratio targets, QBRs, churn scores. (Forgive me, but yawn). Instead, we kept what worked — and rewrote the rest.

### 1. Customer Informed Roadmap

When I joined in February 2023, Ashby already had a strong feedback loop between CS, Support, and Product. Today, we track friction points across the lifecycle and hold a P-level company goal to reduce them. Our CS Team takes pride in uncovering the driving force behind customer suggestions, why those are important to the unique goals of a talent organization, and championing customers internally by influencing product decisions. While I could dedicate an entire post to our commitment here, the snapshot below is just one example from our internal product expert [Sheanee](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheanee-michaud/)’s recurring digest email. 

![](/images/example-voice-of-customer-ashby.png)

Ultimately, customer suggestions are one of the three key inputs we consider when shaping the [roadmap](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/product-velocity), alongside our long-term product vision and consideration of market shifts.

### 2. Hiring for the “Product‑Market‑Customer” Gene

 Most CS orgs hire for archetypes: relationship-first, commercial-first, or product-first. At Ashby, we hire utility players who can traverse elevations on a topic – people who can move from deeply nuanced product questions about the [Recruiting Planner](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/recruiting-planner-visualizations-forecasting) to elevated headcount strategy discussions without breaking stride. In interviews, I look for candidates who respond to ambiguity with curiosity: They ask for context, data, and seek to define outcomes. Excellent CSMs feel “itchy” when something isn’t quite right for the customer — and channel that instinct into action. For me, this quality matters materially more than the logos on their resume.

### 3. Force Multipliers, Not Solo Stars

Knowledge grows when shared. CSMs at Ashby codify their learnings into playbooks, articles, and enablement resources. This creates compounding value. Advanced Scheduling metrics become a Lunch and Learn (thank you, [Christian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/novicks/)); clever reports become a templated dashboard ([Emily](https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-withers-a7770a84/), appreciate you); an onboarding best practice becomes an [Ashby Academy](https://academy.ashbyhq.com/) module (shout-out to [Jace](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacetala/)).  Our team knows that if they hoard knowledge, they’re failing the mission.

### 4. A Single Definition of Customer Health

Ask a handful of SaaS companies for their health score and you’ll receive a litany of responses. We’re simplifying our assessment to four core leading indicators: achievement of customer outcomes, product usage data, intent signals, and – drumroll please – human input. Each has sub‑metrics, but the point is clarity. A yellow account means the CSM can pinpoint which of the inputs needs attention and why (big thank you to [Britney](https://www.linkedin.com/in/britneytalty/) for all your work here – it has certainly been a labor of love).

### 5. Investment in Specialized Roles

In 2025, we tripled the size of our Support Engineering Team and doubled our Contract Management function. Next up: expanding our team of Recruiting Operations Consultants. Each of these specialized roles strengthens our ability to lead with a proactive, customer-centric approach — and reinforces that Customer Success is a team effort.

## A Promise to the Team

Yes, I’m obsessed with customer outcomes — and equally committed to building an environment where every team member across Customer Success, Support, Professional Services, RecOps, Implementation, and Contract Management discovers their strengths, stretches well beyond their comfort zone, and accelerates their career.  In practice, that means:

* **Force Multiplier Culture**. You non-negotiably make your teammates better — and they do the same. Expect steep growth in both hard and soft skills (sometimes uncomfortably steep).
* **Product Mastery**. You will arrive with strong product acumen; within your first year, you’ll become an Ashby expert capable of designing and teaching complex workflows.
* **Ownership**. In alignment with our Operating Principle of [Prioritize Ownership](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles#4---prioritize-ownership) – own your book like a founder, share your learnings like a teacher, and continue to raise the bar with peers and customers alike.
* **Empowerment**. If you know the right move, make it. We trust you.
* **Informed Product Decisions**. You’ll influence what we ship next via regular engagement with our product roadmap software, our Friday Product Stand Ups, weekly round-ups, and more.
* **Career Growth**. Whether you want to double down in CS or explore other functions, we’ll support you in mapping your path to identify opportunities at the intersection of your strengths, joy, and Ashby’s needs. We’ve seen colleagues migrate to Marketing (congrats, [Elizabel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabel/)), Product (hello, [Ravan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravan-c-43a95140/)!) and promoted within CS (most recently, shout-out to [Morgan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-omarro/) as the newest Manager of our Implementation Team)!
* **Data-Driven**. We make every reasonable effort to equip you with the information you need to do exceptional work
* **Aligned Go-To-Market**. In no uncertain terms, our Sales Team is excellent at accurately depicting the product and the post-sale experience; this means we get to hit the ground running with customers at kick-off – no surprises.

This is how we multiply our impact — and that of our customers.

## A Promise to Customers

Over the next year, our investments align with our strategic approach:

* **24/7 Global Support** (365 days a year) across AMER, EMEA, and APAC
* **A Support Engineering Layer** to resolve complex issues faster
* **A New Knowledge Base and Ticketing System** optimized for your experience
* **AI‑Powered In-App HelpHub** — already 50,000 questions answered with more than 90% rated excellent (yes, we review every single response)
* **Enterprise‑Grade Professional Services** packages that remove lift and accelerate time-to-value
* **Community Programming**: user webinars, Ashby Academy, Ashby Customer Expert programming, and more

Our north star is simple: understand your opportunities, elevate your workflows, and ensure your team looks brilliant under the spotlight (spoiler: you make it easy).

## Closing Thoughts

Customer Success at Ashby is not a cost center. It’s not insurance for renewal. It’s a strategic growth driver. 

When we anticipate market shifts, translate product complexity, and explore the unique context of every customer, we create a flywheel: customers realize more value, they share with others, the market elevates expectations, the bar raises further. That virtuous cycle earns Ashby our seat at the table — and helps how our customers earn theirs.

If you’re already with us, I hope this reflection deepens your confidence in our partnership. If you’re just getting to know Ashby, know this: the product you buy comes with a team obsessed with your success. We’ll keep the spotlight right where it belongs: on you. 

And if you’re a CS professional looking for your next challenge? [Let us know](https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers).

At Ashby, Customer Success isn’t about renewals—it’s about helping talent teams shine. Learn how our team blends industry know-how, product mastery, and customer insight to keep the spotlight on our customers.

Customer Success at Ashby: A Core Differentiator

Will Ducey

I’m Will Ducey, and I’m starting my new role as Head of Recruiting Operations at Ashby.

For over ten years, I’ve built and led global recruiting teams. My journey has taken me through a variety of experiences, but the one that really changed my path was a work trial at Automattic. It gave me the opportunity to transition into Recruiting Operations, a field that perfectly aligned with my curiosity, my love of learning, and my passion for making teams better.

For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of leading internal recruiting operations. What we accomplished together through many different hiring cycles is truly incredible. From centralizing our coordination team to transitioning from a legacy ATS to Ashby All-in-One, every step we took was an intentional move towards leveling up how we operate.

I’ve always prided myself on staying ahead of the game when it comes to hiring, and specifically, RecOps. Whether it was [email automation](https://www.ere.net/articles/email-automation-tips-to-increase-candidate-response-rates-by-will_ducey) in 2015, [structured interviewing](https://www.ere.net/articles/why-structured-interviews-are-the-best-way-to-hire) and [recording interviews](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-journey-brighthire-will-ducey/) in 2019, or the many other topics I’ve written about [here](https://www.willducey.xyz/), I’ve always looked for ways to innovate. So in 2023 as we were implementing Ashby, I was curious to see what opportunities would present – namely in the areas of automation, standardization, alerting, reporting, and hiring transparency.

## Why I’m excited about Ashby

Jim Miller wrote a job description for an [audience of one](https://www.willducey.xyz/job-descriptions-built-for-hiring-performance-and-business-success/). Multiple colleagues saw the job post and said, “it was written for you.” I took a look and agreed. I have been very intentional over the last couple of years to share my ideas, start a podcast, and ensure that I would be ready for a role like this.

I was an Ashby customer for three years. I started using Ashby Analytics and then transitioned to All-in-One. I recognized the Ashby team that drove our experience and knew firsthand what the product could do. I can still remember pushing our business leaders to make the switch to Ashby All-in-One. At the time, recruiting wasn’t a huge focus, and no one was complaining about our hiring stack. But I knew the next phase of growth was coming, and we’d need the full capacity of Ashby to hit our hiring targets. We couldn’t throw more people at the problem, and we certainly couldn’t have our recruiters bouncing between multiple systems. We needed a streamlined, efficient process, and I had conviction that Ashby was the solution.

After moving to Ashby All-in-One,  we focused on improving our processes to scale and improving key performance metrics. Even as we onboarded brand-new team members, Ashby gave us a streamlined, scalable way of working that kept everyone aligned and moving fast. We accomplished this while architecting the system, migrating candidate records, launching new reporting dashboards, and adapting quickly to frequent product updates and evolving needs.

We delivered a step-function improvement in Recruiting in just a few months. With the foundation in place and the team positioned for long-term success, I made the decision to join Ashby and bring that level of impact to more organizations.

My second week at Ashby began in San Francisco for [Ashby One](https://www.ashbyoneconference.com/). Who doesn’t love speaking at their company’s conference on week two?! I made the most of the opportunity and even danced on stage to my [walk-up song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qparhhC1YB0).

![](/images/_c1a1062.jpg)

It’s rare in a distributed company that you get to meet so many colleagues this quickly. Everyone I met exceeded my expectations. Benji greeted me with a hug and genuine excitement for me to be there. When I accepted my offer, so many of my future colleagues reached out to congratulate me. I have never felt so welcomed to join a company.

I have experienced the power of Ashby in rapidly and systematically scaling hiring, and I could not be more excited to champion market adoption across all businesses that want an efficient, fair, and effective hiring process.

## What I'll be focusing on

Like all thoughtfully scaling organizations, I’ll be diving into Ashby’s internal hiring operations first. I’ll drive internal adoption of yet-to-be released capabilities while also focusing on the long-term architecture of our [Hiring Excellence Framework](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework). 

* Scale. I am a team of one, and my goal is to stay this way for as long as possible. Our hiring process is hiring manager-led, and I know what Ashby is capable of. We’ll use the Ashby product to increase our leverage as we scale.
* Experimentation. As the best-in-breed hiring stack, we need to understand how to hire effectively and have an opinion on what works, what we’ve experimented with, and constantly evaluate our perspective.
* Knowledge Sharing. Once I’m fully settled in, I look forward to connecting with our current and soon-to-be customers to better understand their challenges. This will deepen my understanding and help me figure out how to share best practices with our industry. 
* Product Influence. Like a puppy who sees his owner return home and open the door, I am so excited to learn about our [immediate product roadmap](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one-whats-new) and influence enhancements and new offerings for better hiring. As we continue to evaluate the first principles of hiring, I am certain we will re-imagine new workstreams and processes that enable companies to bring in the best person for the role.

Ashby is the real deal. The [product](https://www.ashbyhq.com/enterprise), the [people](https://www.ashbyhq.com/team), and the [product philosophy](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/product-velocity) will continue to elevate hiring for everyone.

Even as a customer, I always felt like I was part of the Ashby story. Now, I’m grateful to be part of it from the inside.

I know considering a change of your hiring management system can be intimidating. I am here to tell you, with Ashby, anything is possible. As a RecOps practitioner, if I can help you with any questions or considerations, please reach out.

## Thank you

For everyone who has been a part of my career journey so far. Thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you. ♥️

Thank you to [Christian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/novicks/) (best CSM), [Jim](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm/), [Benji](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminencz/), and the rest of my interviewers for the opportunity! LFG!

A letter from RecOps expert Will Ducey on joining Ashby.

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Inside the Ashby One Agenda: Why We Build Sessions Differently

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Announcing Ashby’s $50 Million Series D

Customer Success at Ashby: A Core Differentiator

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

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