Regional IT Support Lead

Ascend Partner Firms

15h

About The Position

Ascend is seeking a senior, hands-on Regional IT Support Lead who will serve on the regional service desk and act as the primary IT relationship owner for every Partner Firm in an assigned region. Approximately 80% of the role is spent working tickets alongside regional L2 IT Support Technicians. The Lead also supervises daily queue health, coaches the team, and owns escalations, with the goal of delivering responsive support and addressing issues before they escalate. The Lead identifies patterns across firms and coordinates with L3 and L4 teams and firm leadership when issues indicate broader gaps, such as applications that were not implemented to Ascend standards. The role includes managing a team of 2–3 L2 technicians, leading firm technology and operations meetings, completing quarterly firm site visits, monitoring regional service performance, driving knowledge management and Shift Left practices, and supporting technology transitions and hypercare for newly joining Partner Firms. The position reports to the Manager of IT End User Services and meets monthly with the Regional President.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience providing remote and deskside end-user support.
At least 2 years of experience in the public accounting industry.
Deep knowledge of accounting firm applications and workflows, including CCH Axcess, UltraTax, CCH ProSystem Engagement, and Excel add-ins.
Strong troubleshooting skills across Azure Virtual Desktop (Nerdio), Microsoft 365, Intune, Zscaler, network, and conferencing environments.
Hands-on experience using Freshservice or comparable ITSM reporting to manage queue health and SLA.
Superior EQ and influencing skills, proven relationship management with firm leadership, and clear, timely communication during escalations.
Bias for action and an ownership mentality; reliable and process-driven.

Nice To Haves

Prior team lead or supervisory experience, with demonstrated ability to coach and develop technicians.
Bachelor’s degree.
Relevant IT certifications.
Familiarity with ITIL frameworks and best practices.

Responsibilities

Work the Freshservice queue daily, maintaining an active personal ticket workload of approximately 80% of work time, resolving escalated tickets, and modeling first-touch resolution.
Lead the regional team toward resolving 80% or more of tickets at first human touch and 95% or more within SLA response and resolution timeframes.
Deliver high-quality service to regional firms and maintain high satisfaction and requester NPS.
Supervise 2–3 L2 IT Support Technicians by assigning and balancing work, running daily queue reviews, coaching and developing technicians, and providing input to scorecard reviews.
Coordinate regional shift coverage, the on-call rotation, and busy-season weekend coverage.
Serve as the IT relationship owner for every Partner Firm in the region, lead Firm Technology Connect calls, and conduct each firm’s monthly operations review.
Plan and complete quarterly site visits for every firm in the region and file templated reports covering leader check-ins, network rooms, conferencing, workstations, and open tickets.
Own regional firm escalations, coordinate with L3 Application Support, L3 Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Integration teams, and keep firm leadership informed through resolution.
Meet monthly with the Regional President to review service performance, firm feedback, and upcoming needs.
Monitor regional scorecard measures, including ticket aging, SLA, first-touch resolution, satisfaction, process adherence, and AI resolution, and act on performance gaps.
Control open queues and aging tickets at every regional firm, ensuring older tickets have a documented plan communicated to the firm.
Reinforce Freshservice as the single system of record and redirect requests submitted through side channels or directly to L3 into the established process.
Identify recurring firm issues and trends, bring them to problem management, and drive firms toward Ascend-standard implementations.
Drive Shift Left by ensuring recurring firm issues become Knowledge Base or how-to articles usable by Ascend’s AI-first support layer, or become automation requests.
Review the team’s articles for quality to help the AI-first layer resolve a larger share of regional incidents over time.
Support Technology Stack Transition (TST) and hypercare for newly joining Partner Firms, including onboarding inherited firm IT staff and evaluating them on the job against role criteria.