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ASCEND CONSULTING ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF KATHY KNERAM TO LEAD USER EXPERIENCE PRACTICE

User Experience Practice to focus on driving lifetime client value for leading financial firms

Boston, MA – May 12, 2008 — Ascend Consulting, a leader in process and technology consulting to the financial services industry, today announced the hiring of Kathy Kneram to head the User Experience Practice. Ms. Kneram is a 17 year industry leader, having lead user experience teams at prestigious firms such as Liberty Mutual, State Street Bank, Moody’s, and JP Morgan Chase. "I am excited to have Kathy join the Ascend team. Her deep expertise with user experience design will allow us to provide our clients powerful products and services to deepen their customer relationships," said Karl Pessinis, President of Ascend. "We are now seeing demand for feature rich, sophisticated visual representations of complex data within business critical internal applications as well as retail sites. We believe our clients will see immediate impact from the work Kathy’s team delivers.”

"In my many years of conducting user research, I’ve never seen such high expectations from customers and employees. They expect the same fast, rich experiences that they have at the ecommerce sites they use," observed Kathy. “It is imperative for companies to really listen to their users and then focus on meeting their needs with the powerful combination of sophisticated interactive design and innovative technology.”

The User Experience Practice brings together the disciplines of Information Architecture, Interactive Design and Visual Design to deliver greater customer loyalty, increased efficiency, decreased transaction costs, and more valuable “information” rather than raw data. Areas of focus include:

• User Research: start by understanding users and their need
• Experience Design: design from the user’s point of view
• User Interface Assessment: evaluate usability of designs early and iteratively.

About Ascend Consulting: 
Ascend is a consulting company that designs, develops, and delivers technology solutions that are directly aligned with your business goals. Our deep understanding of both business processes and information technology enables us to successfully translate your business vision into a finished technology solution for competitive advantage. Our elite team of experts, relationship-focused engagement model, and unique Catapult™ methodology allow Ascend to significantly reduce your business risk while optimizing your use of technology for business advantage. We deliver high-quality, best-of-breed, competitive solutions while reducing development time and expense. Clients include Fortune 1000 and global companies with critical, revenue-dependent business initiatives and complex IT infrastructures. For more information, visit: www.ascendconsult.com