David Ashton

A New Chapter: Launching John O’Melia Coaching & Consulting Last year, I decided to take a sabbatical to properly recharge. After years of running hard in operational C-suite roles, I gave myself the gift of a few months to be truly present with my family and friends. It was a rejuvenating break that gave me the clarity to see exactly what I wanted my next adventure to be. Looking back on my career, the most rewarding moments weren't just the business milestones—they were the opportunities to work closely with leaders navigating periods of significant growth and complexity. As I envisioned my next professional chapter, I knew I wanted to focus on that impact. While I have a wealth of leadership experience forged on the field of play, I believe the best leaders never stop being students. To that end, I recently attended the Leadership and Performance Coaching Certification at Brown University (class photo). This rigorous program allowed me to layer a formal, methodical framework over my real-world expertise. Today, I am proud to officially launch my practice: John O'Melia Coaching & Consulting. My focus will be partnering with two distinct groups of leaders: - Rising Leaders & Executives: Navigating the leap to complex leadership, building executive presence, and transitioning from tactical operators to strategic leaders. - C-Suite & Founders: Managing major inflection points, strategic transitions, and building high-performance, loyal teams that go above and beyond. My approach is practical, grounded in operational reality, and results-oriented. I focus not just on business strategy, but on the performance and growth of the individuals and teams driving it. If you are interested in elevating your leadership or developing your organization’s executive pipeline, I would love to connect. Please message me or visit my website - johnomelia-coaching.com

This International Women’s Day, I invite you to celebrate something that is not usually celebrated…failure. I bring it up on today of all days, because failure in my life has been deeply feminine and personal. I celebrate it because it has made me into the woman I am today 💁🏼‍♀️👑✨ I invite you back to a time in my life where it felt like all I experienced was failure. For four years of my life, I dedicated everything I was to walking the Miss USA stage. I poured hundreds of hours into interview prep, cat walking, stage presence and training my body to meet impossible standards. I spent my hard earned money on dresses, makeup, hair, trips to see coaches and to be seen at competitions. I found a few fundraising opportunities with businesses but was still barely able to pay the entrance fee. With every loss I refined my approach and got better every year. I got so good that I ended up coaching contestants at Miss Teen USA, Miss USA and even Miss Universe…yet I could not seem to even make a Top 5 in any state pageant I competed in. For all of it, I became better and now know that failure is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to be celebrated. Here are 10 reasons why: 1️⃣ Failure builds resilience. It teaches you how to bounce back from challenges and overcome obstacles. 2️⃣ Failure teaches you valuable lessons. It shows you what works and what doesn't, and helps you improve your skills and strategies. 3️⃣ Failure brings you closer to your goals. Every no is getting you closer to the yes you were meant for. Every setback is an opportunity to try again with more knowledge and experience. 4️⃣ Failure fosters creativity. It forces you to think outside the box and find new ways to solve problems. 5️⃣ Failure boosts your confidence. It shows you that you are capable of taking risks and facing challenges, and that you can handle whatever comes your way. 6️⃣ Failure strengthens your character. It reveals your true values and priorities, and helps you grow as a person. 7️⃣ Failure connects you with others. It allows you to share your struggles and successes with others who can relate, support, and inspire you. 8️⃣ Failure motivates you to work harder. It gives you a sense of urgency and purpose, and pushes you to achieve more than you thought possible. 9️⃣ Failure makes you appreciate your achievements more. It makes you realize how much effort and dedication it takes to succeed, and how rewarding it is to reach your goals. 🔟 Failure is inevitable. It is part of life and part of success. Everyone fails at some point, but not everyone learns from it. So don't let failure stop you from pursuing your dreams. Embrace it, learn from it, and celebrate it. Failure is not the end, but the beginning of something great 💁🏼‍♀️👑✨ #failure #internationalwomensday #customersuccess #customersuccessbestie

Over the past 2 years, I've had the amazing opportunity to partner and collaborate with an incredibly talented group of CSMs to establish and grow a team operating at scale to support a diverse group of customers using the entire spectrum of DocuSign products. This role required an incredibly unique skillset, balancing deep technical acumen, the ability to understand and support a wide range of both distinct an interrelated products and features, highly developed interpersonal skills to support both direct customer users and executive sponsors, and the ability to build out a program in real time while delivering excellent results. To say that I managed this team is a misnomer, as I learned more from them than they will ever learn from me, and my primary goal was always creating bandwidth and opportunities for two amazing leaders-- Angelina Fong and Sarah Urbanski --to implement a paradigm shifting vision for how customer success should operate at scale Unfortunately, this team is now available for other organizations to leverage their immense individual (or collective) talent. For any group looking to add established and effective people leaders, build or supplement an at scale CSM motion, or just grab some incredible CSM talent, please take a look at Mallory Yee Keonia Kelly Nicole Mannhalter Brandie H. Naaman Abrams Ryan Kam Jazmine Santayana Faisal Zahoor Nicole Nguyen Rachael Waters Ryan Verlatti Janelle Alston Tyler Roland Angelina Fong and Sarah Urbanski To the team--thank you for giving me the opportunity to go on this journey with you, for "coaching me up," allowing me to learn from you and develop a completely new and valuable skill set, and giving me the opportunity to share in the incredible impact you had on our customers. Please don't let the immediate circumstances dim your perceptions of the amazing program you developed, implemented and operationalized and the unique "can do" culture and collaborative environment we created together Network---I cant say it enough--get after these folks ASAP

Earlier this week my team lost a group of amazing Customer Success Managers with deep subject matter expertise supporting complex CLM and Artificial Intelligence enabled contracting solutions. Each person (along their remaining colleagues) was hand selected to define and transform how customers implemented, adopted and expanded their CLM footprint based on their unique backgrounds and skills in the contracting space. As a team, this group was more than the sum of its parts both culturally and substantively. If you are an organization looking to implement a CLM system, a technology provider in the CLM/Contracting space, or just looking for highly motivated and immensely talented people who will be cultural cornerstones for your customer success organization, don't sleep on these folks and please reach out to me if I can connect you. Howard Voletsky Julie Prieto Jarred DeHerrera Karima Ibrahim-- it was an absolute pleasure. I consider myself privileged to have participated in your professional journey and am happier still that I've added to my roster of lifelong friends.