The Journey From the Ground Floor to the C-Suite

The Journey From the Ground Floor to the C-Suite

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Started From the Bottom Now We’re Here.

In the world of business, the journey from entry-level positions to the heights of executive leadership is often depicted as a linear climb, marked by successive, clearly defined rungs on a corporate ladder. Yet, the paths of Whitney Ramirez and Ashlie Marshall tell a different story—one of organic growth, unexpected roles, and the kind of adaptability that turns challenges into stepping stones toward leadership.

They share their story together in episode 3 of the C-Suite Chicks podcast.

Whitney began her career as a content team lead right out of college, without an actual team to lead. “I led the content, whatever content was needing to be led, I led,” Whitney recalls. Her early career highlights the reality many young professionals face: titles that don’t always align with the traditional responsibilities or the complexities of the job. Yet, it was this initial role that set the foundation for her rapid ascent to CEO.

Ashlie’s experience complements Whitney’s, bringing another layer of depth to the narrative of climbing the corporate ladder. Starting as a client coach, she was thrust into client communications, a role she was initially hesitant to embrace. Reflecting on the beginnings of her journey, Ashlie shared, “I didn’t want to talk to clients; that was not in my plan, but I’m really glad I did it.” Her ability to adapt to unexpected challenges not only enhanced her skill set but also forged deeper connections with clients, proving pivotal for her career advancement.

The dialogue between Whitney and Ashlie reveals a dynamic and often chaotic environment where roles evolved rapidly in response to the company’s needs. Whitney explains her transition through various roles, from social media director to COO and eventually CEO, as a series of learning opportunities: “Each of those steps gave me the ability to know what I needed to do in my next role.”

One significant theme that emerges from their conversation is the importance of adaptability and seeing potential in every task, no matter how small or initially undesired. Ashlie's ability to juggle client communications while managing a busy home life, particularly as a new mother, speaks volumes about the real-life complexities of women climbing the corporate ladder. “I had to be like, I'm really sorry about the background noise,” she describes, managing work calls amidst her children’s needs.

Their story is also one of strategic restructuring within their company, reflecting a keen understanding of organizational needs and individual strengths. As the company grew, so did the necessity for specialized teams and clear roles, transitioning from a flat structure where everyone did a bit of everything, to a more hierarchical yet flexible structure that leveraged individual strengths. Whitney remembers, “We went from unscalable to scalable.”

The culmination of their efforts and experiences is a testament to the power of leadership that is responsive, empathetic, and innovative. “We are so lucky, thinking back that we had people that were so talented,” Whitney states, emphasizing the collaborative nature of their corporate ascent.

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The journey from the ground floor to the C-suite is rarely straightforward. It demands resilience, the willingness to embrace unforeseen roles, and the ability to lead through change. Whitney and Ashlie’s story is not just about career advancement; it’s about transforming every small opportunity into a launchpad for greater achievements. It’s about the journey, not just the destination.

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Ashlie Marshall (00:01):

I had be on the phone call with an owner, and my kid would be, mom, mom, I want a snack. Mommy, mommy. And I just had to be like, I'm really sorry about the background noise, and I would be fixing snacks or fixing lunch or putting on the potty, or things like that while I'm having a conversation with this owner who runs a multimillion dollar business.

(00:40):

All right. Hey y'all, the C-suite chicks. Welcome, welcome,

Whitney Ramirez (00:45):

Welcome. C-Suite Chicks. Today I have myself, of course, Whitney, CEO. Never say that, but today I have to because we're going to define the C-suite. And I also have here Ashley,

Ashlie Marshall (01:01):

C-F-O-C-F-O. Yep. Never say that. We will get into that in a completely different episode, but yep.

Whitney Ramirez (01:11):

Yeah, it's weird saying it. I don't think I've said that in a year.

Ashlie Marshall (01:15):

Yeah. Well, welcome y'all. We're glad you are here to listen. We're going to define the c-suite, but more importantly, we're going to kind of explain to y'all our C-suites. I feel like, and Whitney, you can tell me if you agree, our C-suite is a little bit unconventional sometimes and different from most,

Whitney Ramirez (01:39):

Maybe because mostly women.

Ashlie Marshall (01:41):

Well, there's that. Yeah. It's all women.

Whitney Ramirez (01:44):

Well, Mikey can't forget about much. Well,

Ashlie Marshall (01:45):

Yes. Can't forget about Mikey, but non-intentional. Either. That was not intentional. It just is who showed up. That's

Whitney Ramirez (01:57):

How it should be

Ashlie Marshall (01:59):

Today. So we are going to jump into reflecting on where we started and what roles Whitney and I were in respectively when we came into the company. You kind of, we'll hear more details about that later in later episodes, but we want to kind of give you an idea of where we were at. So Whitney, you want to talk about what your role was and what year that was, and then I'll talk about mine.

Whitney Ramirez (02:25):

Yeah. So I was 21 in college working towards my biology degree, and my role coming on board as employee number one was content team lead. I didn't have a team to lead, but that was my title.

Ashlie Marshall (02:43):

You led the content. Okay.

Whitney Ramirez (02:45):

I led the content, whatever content was needing to be led, I led.

Ashlie Marshall (02:51):

That's right. It was mostly social though, back then, right?

Whitney Ramirez (02:54):

Yeah, no, I did blogs mostly social. Well, I had to edit blogs, post blogs. So text and social.

Ashlie Marshall (03:03):

Yes, he outsourced it.

Whitney Ramirez (03:06):

Our founder and I had to rewrite

Ashlie Marshall (03:07):

Them. And you edited and posted. Okay. Okay. You're bringing me back. Wow. Okay.

Whitney Ramirez (03:13):

I know.

Ashlie Marshall (03:15):

So when I came onto the team in the fall of 2018, I came on in a new role that the founder had just decided was a thing, and I was called a client coach. So my role was to communicate with the clients that were assigned to me and do all of the backend work for that same list of clients. I believe I started out with a list of clients around 29. Our clients are a little, it's an interesting niche. I'll have a specific owner, but that owner might own more than one businesses that needed backend work. So I believe I had 28 owners that I spoke to, but that equated to 36 or 37 businesses that I was doing work for on the backend. So Whitney had kind of started off doing the editing of the blogs and the social media, but then as people came into the role that I came into, some of that work got taken off her plate, but it got replaced quickly. With other work, there is a big rotating door on what we were doing and how we were doing it. That's where we started off.

Whitney Ramirez (04:28):

But it's nice, like us being able to see everything that happened and how things worked on the ground level gave us the ability to see what needed to change, what was already good, how clients were perceiving our service. It gave us a view of everything

Ashlie Marshall (04:49):

That was, I think when I think back, I remember coming onto the team and the reason that I came asking for a job, looking for a job was because I was pregnant and it was my second child and I wanted to work from home opportunity. And I remember this was the only role that I could take on, and it was not something I really wanted to do. I didn't want to talk to clients that was not in my plan, but I'm really glad I did it.

Whitney Ramirez (05:20):

So I went from content team lead to social media director to COO to CEO. So it's interesting because each of those steps gave me the ability to know what I needed to do in my next role. And I think, well, actually, what would you say helped you? What did you learn in your first roles with the company that still help you today?

Ashlie Marshall (05:54):

Oh, gosh. Doing all the work, understanding actually what it takes to have good results in the work that we do. And then the communicating, getting forced into communicating, getting forced into make the phone call. I don't want to make the phone call, just make the phone call. And the more I did it, the less it was like, I don't want to make the phone call. I was like, oh, I just have to make this call. Obviously for me, it was much different making the phone call than when you jumped into client communication. So we can kind of jump into that. But fast forward, gosh, six-ish months after I got hired and I had a baby, and I took a few weeks off, three weeks I think. And some situations happened internally that some people left, and Whitney kind of jumped into a mess of sorts that she had to quickly figure out what the client communicating was all about because she kind of got shoved into it because she had strengths in organization and she had strengths in, Hey, I just need to get in and get this done. And that was kind of a whole internal shift. And when I came back from having a baby, Whitney was my boss, and it was kind of cool.

Whitney Ramirez (07:10):

Yeah, it was a crazy time because

(07:15):

I'm like 23 ish at the time, but I was always a problem solver. I was always a doer. And so it's like there's this huge problem in front of me. And so it's like me being who I am, I'm like, okay, well, we're going to figure it out. And we did. And I am also so picky in terms of knowing that, okay, this is on me to do a good job and get this problem solved. I'm going to take the clank communication that I was going to give to someone else that I ended up. I said, no, you're not a good fit. I'm going to do it myself. And we did it Well, I think

Ashlie Marshall (08:00):

Too. Yeah, you kind of stepped in as speaking to some upset people, and that led to you just jumping into speaking to all of the people that the apps in person left behind, and you were able to build relationships. And for you at that time, y'all had just moved into the office and BA, it was a small little office you had a space to work in. Wasn't always quiet. I was about to stay quiet, but your space was not always quiet for multiple reasons, but it was an office space. Whereas my situation when I was making client phone calls, you asked me what I learned that I took with me was, this was a big part of it. My kids were around when I was talking to clients, I was working from home. I had a two and a half year old and an infant, and I'd be on the phone call with an owner and my kid would be, mom, mom, I want a snack, mommy, mommy.

(08:58):

And I just had to be like, I'm really sorry about the background noise, and I would be fixing snacks or fixing lunch or putting on the potty or things like that while I'm having a conversation with this owner who runs a multimillion dollar business that my company that I work for is serving. And it was like a dose of humility, and it was also, you do what you got to do. I had been in situations where you do what you have to do, but not like that. Where I was very worried about my background noise and my working situation, making the client think I couldn't do what I was doing. I couldn't provide a service for them or I wasn't doing a good job because I was splitting my attention. But I always tried to make it sound as though I wasn't splitting my attention when in fact, I definitely was.

Whitney Ramirez (09:47):

I

Ashlie Marshall (09:47):

Definitely was. But I tried to play it off as if, oh, it's good. It's good.

Whitney Ramirez (09:52):

I know I got off a call 30 minutes ago, and obviously Corey was on it. I was on it with her, and she had Maddie on and Maddie's mom, mom, mom and the client's like at the end he's like, thank you, Corey, for your time. Thank you Corey's daughter for your time. So our clients are so understanding, and I think the world as a whole is too, because I'll be on a call with a customer service rep or something. I can hear their baby in the background. I don't even think twice about it,

Ashlie Marshall (10:24):

Right? Well, now we're that way because of the pandemic situation. Back when I was starting this, I definitely used it to build relationships. I think that was a strength that I created. I didn't have it before, but I think having my kids around while I was working definitely built a strength in me that was like, I'm just going to talk about my personal life for this much and my time, a tidbit. And it opened the door for those people to talk about their personal life, and it built a relationship. And I would say 80% of those clients are still our clients now. And so I feel like it worked in my favor. I don't know that I would've had as much confidence in communicating with those clients if I didn't have those sidebar distraction pieces. So that's definitely something I learned and how we kind of morphed into that. And then once you stepped into that role, now you were solving this giant problem.

(11:26):

I was trying to help you, but I wanted to help you in the shadows. I did not want to help you at the forefront for multiple reasons, which maybe one day we'll talk about, but not today. And I remember it getting me to get on board with you and come out of the shadows took a lot for you to coax me out of. But then about a year later, well a year and a half later, we kind of stepped into a new realm, I feel like. And that's kind of where we start our C-suite journey. I mean, you were operations, you were COO when I had the baby. And all of that shifted internally. And then we fast forward a year and a half and you kind of tugged me along into coming out of the shadows, but I was really just trying to support you. I knew what you had your hands in, I knew what you were doing. And I was like, man, let me just give her as much support as I possibly can, and we're just going to work this way and I'm good with it. I'm good with it. I can take care of my kids. I can get this job done. I can be there for Whitney, and we're just going to keep pushing forward. And then a year and a half later, Whitney and I realized that wasn't going to work for very long.

Whitney Ramirez (12:37):

Yeah, I think the biggest hurdle of me going into the COO role is, okay, there's a big situation that happened that caused a lot of distrust, and then I'm in this role and I got a lot of pressure on me, but I also know there's broken relationships within the whole company and broken

(13:00):

Trust within the whole company. Nobody really knows what to do. No one knows who they should look towards for leadership in terms of this is what we should be doing, this is what we shouldn't be doing. There's a lot of confusion within the company. And so me jumping into that role, I tried to make sure that I knew what everyone's strengths were, where everyone could fit into a better position in the company. Because when I came into the role, I remember maybe two weeks into it knowing how it was operating. I was in my social media corner and then two weeks being into the COO role, I was like, we need a team for this and we need a team for this, and we need a team for this. And everyone's doing the same thing right now. And it's great when you have a person that's multifaceted and can excel in all those different areas, but you can't hire, it's terrible hire for that role. No,

Ashlie Marshall (14:02):

You cannot hire for that role.

Whitney Ramirez (14:05):

You cannot hire for that role because it's detrimental to a company to have. You've

Ashlie Marshall (14:13):

Got technical tasks,

Whitney Ramirez (14:15):

Right?

Ashlie Marshall (14:16):

Yes, it is detrimental. You've got technical tasks. People need to understand the technicality of X, Y, Z. We were getting the work done, but we were not doing the work at a level that was going to get the best results for our clients because we had nobody focusing on one specific thing and improving that one specific thing. We had four individuals all doing the same role essentially, and somebody trying to direct that. And then I almost said something bad. But yeah, Whitney definitely had started thinking about that. I remember from that first, I

Whitney Ramirez (14:56):

Remember a chart that I drew two weeks in and I was like, it should be like this. It should be like this.

Ashlie Marshall (15:01):

Yes.

Whitney Ramirez (15:02):

And everyone agreed it, you

Ashlie Marshall (15:03):

And I talked about, yeah, but we didn't talk about it right away. I think it was maybe three or four, maybe. I think it was like six months later. It was towards the end of the year. And we kind of started talking about that, but then it took another whole nine months to kind of actually say, okay, are we going to do this? Let's do it. And then a door opened for us, the pandemic hit, the company grew. We brought on a lot of new business when the pandemic hit because our client base thrived in the pandemic because they offered services that were needed at the time. And so we had some people choose to depart, which was great for them. And we brought on a couple of new people, and Whitney and I were like, okay, it's okay. Let's just go in feet first, jump in, let's go to the deep end. And it worked. I mean, you got set with the who you wanted, where you made the roles and responsibilities. I dove head headfirst into our platform monday.com and built our entire thing that supported the work we wanted them to do. We knew what we wanted them working on. We knew who we wanted where, and then we built a platform that gave them support in doing that. And that was really, I feel like that was the birth of our c-suite.

Whitney Ramirez (16:29):

Yeah, it really was. And it's like we are so lucky too, thinking back that we had people that were so talented in terms of knowing how to do everything and being able to help us bridge the gap between going from, we're going to operate this way to, we're going to split up into specialty teams because we have the clientele for it. We have the revenue for it now, and we can really scale this thing. We went from unscalable to scalable. And the other cool thing is that one of those people that knew how to do everything is our COO. Yep. Lindy,

Ashlie Marshall (17:13):

She left, she departed from us and because of all of the disorganization, and then Whitney and I cleaned it up, and then she came right back and we were so grateful.

Whitney Ramirez (17:25):

But it's so cool because looking back now, we were going through these hurdles and we were the breeding ground for a c-suite in a way because we learned everything from ground, ground, floor up. And we also learned each other's what each other was really good at along the way because, and honestly, it's so cool how I fell into place too. We find out, Hey, I'm really good at sales and business development.

Ashlie Marshall (18:05):

I hate sales.

Whitney Ramirez (18:07):

Yeah. Lindy is so good at, she's also a problem solver. She makes things work and she's putting things into operations and systems and using what Ashley created as a foundation and scaling that. And then we already knew, I already knew Ashley could handle finances. And going back to trying to build trust, I tried so hard to build trust for everyone in a way where I'm like, Hey, look what this person did. Look what this person knows. And I knew she had that in her back pocket, and I kept it there. I was like, one day Ashley is going to lead our finances and do a killer job. And we're here now.

Ashlie Marshall (18:55):

Well, yeah, I'm not sure so sure about the killer part, but we'll get there. We'll get there. We're not far off. We we're making headway. Yeah, it was definitely, I agree with your comment on it was a breeding ground. We did have a lot of one loyal people and they knew how to do a lot of things, and they knew how to do a certain specific set of things very well. And so part of that journey for us was making sure we kept them on part of that conversation. I remember those meetings. I think that was one of the key things that made our restructure so successful was because before we set the launch date for the restructure, we had the conversations, we had the hard conversations with each other. We had the hard conversations with each individual employee that was still with the company at the time, and the new employee that came on, I think there was one or two, and we said, Hey, we know that you're capable of these things here, but if you had to choose, if you had to really pick something to thrive in and focus on what is it?

(19:56):

We know your strengths light here. We know your weaknesses light here. What's your take on it and where do you want to be? And I think that it grew the loyalty and it grew the understanding that we were not just going to put them in a role and give them a title, because titles are just words on a page. They really are. They're just words on the page. And understanding your team's strengths and how to give them a way to work into their strengths while building their weaknesses is so pivotal for your team because they feel supported. B, they're going to work hard because they know you know what they're good at, and you want to push 'em to keep doing that and grow in the areas that they're weak. And as long as you provide that supportive system, supportive environment, then giving them the platforms, giving them the processes, but allowing them to be a part of that conversation, that's huge.

(20:52):

And I think that's why our company grew at that moment. We may have not brought in a huge amount of reoccurring revenue, but we grew internally in that our relationships with our clients got strengthened. The work that we were doing for them got better and their results got better. And 90% of that company, that one company's, the agency's revenue comes from word of mouth. All of our new clients always came from word of mouth, 90% of them. And so if we were providing better results because we were working hard internally, you and I were focusing on getting the team together and restructuring and making it scalable, and then it grew on its own. It was just organic. It just happened.

Whitney Ramirez (21:40):

Like if our clients were happy with our service or even gave us a shot back in the day, look how happy they are now. And that's why we have people still, I have a client that started with us in 20 17, 20 16. Our very first clients are, a handful of them are still with us to this day. And

Ashlie Marshall (22:03):

You're still signing on for more services. Yeah.

Whitney Ramirez (22:06):

Yeah. It's really crazy to know that. But it does. The more you work on yourself, the more opportunities will open up.

Ashlie Marshall (22:19):

So now in these roles that when Whitney and I look back on this last, gosh, now it's five years because Harley just turned five. So it's five year journey that we've been on together. I would've never dubbed myself as being able to be agile and adaptable in these types of environments. But when you look back at all the adversity we went through, which we didn't talk about, but there was a lot of challenges. There was a lot of roadblocks that we maneuvered around and over and through and under and found different ways to get by. Looking back, I'm now, man, we were successfully agile in a very, somewhat toxic, somewhat questionable time in the life of the company. And I would like to say that I'm kind of proud of how we got through that.

Whitney Ramirez (23:20):

Yeah, it's really cool because I don't know, it kind of reminds me of, I saw this TikTok the other day. It's like a Kevin Gates speech, and it's like, I used to be so negative why this happened to me, or why am I going through this? Or why me? I'm a 23-year-old. I don't know what a co o does. And then his response was, if you change your perspective, why not me? I can do this bill for this. Let's get it. And I was like, that's just really cool. Change your perspective to say, okay, well this was meant for me, so let's do it. Let's see if I could do it.

Ashlie Marshall (24:06):

Yeah, I agree with that. I think I had to change my perspective and some of those really darkest days that were the most difficult for me were right after having Harley and jumping back into work well before I was supposed to.

Whitney Ramirez (24:21):

Yeah. Well, that's just a hard time in general. You're a whole new person.

Ashlie Marshall (24:26):

But changing my perspective, you are a whole new person. You go from one kid to two kids, your body's hormonally raging. I mean, any of our listeners who have children or have been in that situation before, it's difficult. And then you jump back into work and you're having to navigate some difficult situations. But honestly, having done it, you made a comment about looking back and man, why has that happened to me? Why do I have to go through that? I'm grateful. I'm grateful for it because it taught me how to work through adversity in some of the most difficult times. If I can do it, then post baby three weeks later, I can do it now. So nothing is ever, I mean, it's scary, but doing it scared, man. I teach my kids that every day. Being brave means you do things even when you're scared to do 'em. And so bravery is definitely a part of that. But what are some top three things you think our listeners here could take away from our experience and what we call our C-suite? Again, titles are just words on a page.

Whitney Ramirez (25:34):

Yeah. I would say you never know what you're capable of until you get thrown into it

Ashlie Marshall (25:39):

And you have no choice.

Whitney Ramirez (25:41):

Yeah. And I say yes before you're ready, because you never know what that could lead to. I could have said no, I feel like that I'm 23. I've never, I've never been a CEO. I don't know what to do. I could have said that, but I didn't. I just said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to figure it out. And then I did

Ashlie Marshall (26:03):

Right there. I'm going to figure it out. I feel like I do that every day still. I don't know

Whitney Ramirez (26:08):

What

Ashlie Marshall (26:09):

I'm doing, but I'm going to figure it out and I might fall on my face, but that's why God gave me hands and feet so I can get right back up and keep on good trucking. So those are good. I think the third takeaway for me would be doing it scared. Right? Keep going. Be brave. Say yes before you're ready. Whitney said, and do it scared. I think they all three kind of tie in together.

Whitney Ramirez (26:33):

Yeah, they do.

Ashlie Marshall (26:35):

It's true. And remember, titles are just words on a page.

Whitney Ramirez (26:40):

I think it's less scary.

Ashlie Marshall (26:43):

It does, yeah. You still struggle with not knowing what you're doing, but you figure it out.

Whitney Ramirez (26:50):

Yeah, definitely. So

Ashlie Marshall (26:52):

If you enjoyed listening to us talk about defining our sweet suite and what our C-suite looks like, how we got here, how we're coping, clearly, please leave a review. Give us some feedback. We want to hear what you have to say. Tell us a little bit about your current job, your role, your environment,

Whitney Ramirez (27:11):

Or what you've learned or what you've learned, even if you're at the ground level.

Ashlie Marshall (27:16):

Heck yeah.

Whitney Ramirez (27:17):

Soak it in too, because you never know how your experience now could lead to an opportunity in the future.

Ashlie Marshall (27:23):

A hundred percent on point. So leave us a review, give us your feedback and share our episode with your friends. Thank you. Thank you all for listening.

Whitney Ramirez (27:34):

See you next time.

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