Marc Mehlman still recalls the moment a senior leader pulled him aside and told him he was “in such a rush” and needed to “enjoy the journey,” he tells us. At the time, Mehlman was part of a leadership program filled with high achievers eager to move quickly into senior roles. Instead, he took a different path—spending nearly a decade moving laterally across FP&A, corporate development, strategy, and operational roles.
That deliberate detour became the foundation of his leadership philosophy. By working across divisions and even geographies, Mehlman built a broad understanding of how businesses actually function. Later, when he stepped into operating roles—including leading a roughly $1 billion revenue segment—he began to see a gap. Many finance leaders could explain results, but not the decisions behind them. “They’re just numbers,” he tells us, emphasizing that financial outcomes are simply the result of actions taken across the business.
Read MoreAnother pivotal moment came when he initially declined an investor relations role. After multiple conversations with senior leadership, he accepted—and discovered the power of communication. There, he learned to tell a consistent story, build credibility, and deliver on expectations quarter after quarter.
Today, as CFO, those experiences converge. His early focus on exploration, combined with operational insight and storytelling discipline, shapes how he evaluates decisions, partners across functions, and defines the modern CFO—not as a reporter of results, but as an architect of them.
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CFOTL: For listeners new to Ascensus and not familiar with the company, how would you describe what it does and the role it plays in the savings and retirement ecosystem?
Mehlman: I absolutely love working for Ascensus, and it really comes down to what we do for people. In essence, we’re a technology-driven financial services company that works largely behind the scenes to help individuals save for the future. We specialize in administering tax-advantaged savings programs—401(k)s, retirement plans, 529 college savings plans, and disability savings accounts. Rather than selling directly to consumers, we partner with banks, financial advisors, employers, and even state governments. Our role is to handle the complex administration, compliance, and technology so our partners can offer savings solutions that are easy to use. In short, we help make saving for retirement, education, and long-term goals simpler for about 16 million Americans.
CFOTL: There are so many headlines shaping the financial landscape today. What trends are influencing your strategic priorities?
Mehlman: One of the biggest trends is expanding access to retirement savings. At both the national and state levels, there’s a strong push to ensure more Americans have the ability to save. You’re seeing things like (government-led) programs and state-funded retirement plans designed to reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who previously didn’t have access. That creates a real challenge—how do you serve that many individuals efficiently? You can’t rely on traditional call centers alone, so we’ve introduced AI chatbots that interact in a conversational way to simplify the experience. Another major focus is education savings. College costs continue to rise, and we support more than 50% of the college savings plans in the market, serving over 9 million Americans. Ultimately, it all comes down to simplicity—making information accessible, connecting the dots for people, and ensuring they understand the pathways available to them.
CFOTL: How do you measure performance across such a broad ecosystem of stakeholders—financial institutions, advisors, and employers? What metrics matter most?
Mehlman: It really depends on the area you’re evaluating. On the sales side, we look at things like sales velocity—how long it takes to move from engagement to closing a plan—and close rates, which directly correlate to overall sales performance. From a technology perspective, we’re looking at how AI is improving efficiency—how much code is being developed through AI and what that means in terms of opportunity cost and productivity gains. We also track how development outputs, like (story points), evolve over time as efficiency improves. On the service side, responsiveness is critical. Time to answer is important, but call abandonment is even more telling. Our partners, especially at the state level, want to know that when constituents call with questions, they not only get an answer quickly but stay on the line long enough to receive the right answer. So the metrics vary by function, but they all tie back to efficiency, effectiveness, and user experience.
Ascensus | www.ascensus.com | Dresher, PA