Meet Ashley Reid Brown

Ashley blends her skills at executive coaching with her passion for making an impact personally and professionally by advising boards, executives, and investors through challenging leadership moments. Here, Ashley talks about the flexibility and freedom she has to balance family and work, serving clients – such as the children’s hospital that cared for a family member – and taking control of her advisory career to make a genuine difference. She also shares how ghSMART empowers her to showcase what makes her unique.

Discovering a Passion for Bringing Out the Best in Leaders

Ashley took what she likes to call a non-linear path to advisory work at ghSMART. “With hindsight being 20/20,” she says, “I realize that I’ve always had a passion for helping leaders make critical decisions when the stakes are high.”  

Her winding journey started in a unique place – the intelligence community. She found having the ability to advise on national security decisions fascinating, which led her to earn a PhD in Public Policy and Political Science. Ultimately, the culture wasn’t the ideal fit for her professional aspirations, and she headed to McKinsey, where she spent a few years as a strategy consultant.  

Ashley says, “I loved the learning and the pace of McKinsey, the exposure I was getting, and the impact we were having on our clients.” However, pregnant with her first child, moving to a new city, and with her father facing a terminal diagnosis, Ashley decided to prioritize a more sustainable balance between her career and personal life. She was recruited to People Operations at Google and worked as an HR business partner before returning to McKinsey as a professional development manager, a role that was both interesting and gave her time to be a mom.

“It was a great space for me to have flexibility, but I missed working with clients,” she says. “I missed the broader-scale impact and the critical thinking I'd had in other parts of my life.” And then, she learned about ghSMART.

Enriching Career Opportunities, Meaningful Client Service

In her quest for the right next step, Ashley crossed paths with someone who’d worked at ghSMART, and that sparked her curiosity. She realized many former colleagues were on the company’s staff, investigated the possibilities, and landed a role herself. At ghSMART, Ashley is able to blend her love of advising people with the expertise she gained in prior roles. Her client portfolio primarily consists of development work with Fortune 500 companies and global nonprofits, including executive leadership team succession planning, one-on-one coaching, and capability building.  

“I especially enjoy engaging with people at inflection points in their career. There's the adage that ‘it’s lonely at the top.’ It’s fulfilling to be a person of trust and to create a safe space for executives to share a less guarded, uncensored version of themselves during vulnerable transitions.”

Measurable impact is also important to Ashley, and ghSMART has opened fulfilling opportunities. For Ashley, ghSMART has allowed her to focus not on products and presentations, but on people and relationships. “I’m having peer-level conversations with people who I can get curious with and who value my guidance,” she says. “It’s not about finding textbook answers. It’s layering individual hopes, dreams, and fears with an understanding of a company’s goals to consider broader implications. It’s respecting someone’s role, while connecting with them on a human level.”

Ashley’s biggest impact story came as a part of the CEO succession team for a children’s hospital. Having spent time at this hospital when she was younger and visiting a close cousin with leukemia, Ashley was grateful for the opportunity. With ghSMART, she was able to contribute to their long-term success.  

"We worked with the board throughout their CEO succession process: helping them think through what they needed and building a future-focused scorecard, creating the interview process and questions, and conducting hiring assessments for their slate of finalists. They brought in a phenomenal CEO who's doing really well,” she says, “It was extremely rewarding to find a perfect fit that they might not have considered if not for our advisory work.”

Taking control of her consulting career has been easy at ghSMART

One of the aspects of ghSMART Ashley appreciates the most is the ability to explore and craft the type of advisory career and lifestyle she wants, without having to sacrifice one for the other. She can create the highest value and impact in ways that feel natural and satisfying. There is freedom and flexibility to shape both her career and personal life, something Ashley values greatly.

“I don't have to choose between being a top talent advisor and being a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, or a wife,” she says. “I can truly embody all the things that are important to me.” As part of a dual career couple, that’s essential. “My husband is a professor and when he's at conferences, I'm able to scale down in my work and be more present at home. At other times, when he has more capacity, then I can ramp up. I love being able to shift.”

This freedom and flexibility makes it possible for Ashley to serve clients with her A-level game, volunteer at her children's school, maintain her exercise routine, and spend time with friends and family. “I get to choose how I show up for the people around me. Yes, sometimes I'm working early in the morning, late at night, or on the weekends; but I define what’s fulfilling to me,” she says.

The Power of You to Write Your Own Story

The value of working at ghSMART extends to shaping a career that develops the “you” that you want to be – your best self at work and in life. Early on, one of the partners Ashley works with closely asked her, “What's the story you're writing? How is what you're doing now impacting that story?” That idea encouraged her to approach her professional commitments strategically.  

“When I first joined ghSMART, I was told that I say ‘yes’ too often, and I needed to say ‘no’ more. It's probably been the only time in my life where I've been encouraged to do less, but I was able to step back and think about my interests in a new light. I love that I'm encouraged to differentiate myself so that the ‘brand of being Ashley’ is celebrated.”

The power of you in action has meant colleagues actively help Ashley bring out what makes her distinctive, so she can build her career successfully and amplify her impact. Others see her expertise and unique skill set, and empower her to use it. That has led to long-term client contracts and lasting relationships that add value to everyone.

“We use our strengths to help our colleagues step into their potential and the power of who they authentically are,” says Ashley. “This personalization at ghSMART is so gratifying. I’m inspired and motivated to pay it forward to make sure everyone has that same experience.”

Ashley’s full bio can be found here.