Divya Smith — CEO

🌟 What if your career didn’t have to fit into one box? What if your future self could look back and say: “I built a life with options, income, and impact”? I’m Divya, a technology executive turned entrepreneur with a portfolio career that blends purpose and performance. After two decades in corporate leadership, I now operate at the intersection of: • Career Coaching for rising leaders • Executive Consulting for digital and strategic growth • Alternative Investing through multifamily real estate Each path fuels the others—and all are designed to help professionals step into more power, clarity, and freedom. ⸻ 💼 Career Coaching for Ambitious Professionals - I coach mid-level leaders who feel stuck or underrecognized to get clear on their next move—and confidently step into it. - From clarity to promotion planning, I equip professionals to build meaningful careers with momentum, direction, and power moves that actually get noticed. 🏢 Corporate Consulting on Strategy, Digital Transformation & GCC - As an executive advisor, I work directly with corporations to shape and scale complex initiatives across Global Capability Centers (GCC), Digital Transformation, and Business Acceleration. - With decades of experience in executive tech leadership, I bring rigor, clarity, and bold execution to every engagement. 🏠 Real Estate Investing for Busy Professionals - Through my firm Ascending Avenue, I help working professionals build true passive income through large-scale multifamily investments. - With over $300M in assets under management, 2K+ units, and double-digit ROI potential, we handle the tenants, toilets, and renovations—so you don’t have to. ⸻ If you’re ready to: ✔ Get promoted with clarity ✔ Unlock growth inside your org ✔ Or earn passive income that buys back your time… Let’s talk. 📩 DM me “Bright Future” to start the conversation.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a multifaceted leader in technology consulting and real estate investment.

Location: Dallas, Fort Worth, United States

Experience: 20 yrs 3 mos

Skills

Passive Income
Multi-family Properties
Digital Strategy
Business Strategy
Mobile Application Development

Career Highlights

Over 20 years of corporate leadership experience.
Expert in digital transformation and strategic growth.
Founder of a successful real estate investment firm.

Work Experience

Ascending Avenue Investments

Chief Executive Officer (3 yrs 4 mos)

Self-employed

Executive Consultant (3 yrs 4 mos)

SMC Squared

Senior Director, Client Success (9 mos)

Optum

Senior Director, Product Technology, Center for Digital Health & Innovation (1 yr 2 mos)

Hilton

Director Software Engineering (1 yr 7 mos)

U.S. Bank

Group Application Manager (10 mos)

Target

Sr. Engineering Manager (8 mos)

IT Delivery Manager (2 yrs 3 mos)

Sr. Release and Project Manager (4 yrs 5 mos)

Technology Leadership Program (8 mos)

Securian Financial Group

IT Trainer (2 yrs 4 mos)

Sr. Programmer Analyst (2 yrs 3 mos)

Education

MBA at UMN Carlson School of Management

Bachelor of Science (BS) at St. Catherine University

Divya Smith

CEO

Dallas, Fort Worth, United States20 yrs 3 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Over 20 years of corporate leadership experience.
Expert in digital transformation and strategic growth.
Founder of a successful real estate investment firm.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a multifaceted leader in technology consulting and real estate investment.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Passive IncomeMulti-family PropertiesDigital StrategyBusiness StrategyMobile Application Development

Other Skills

Technical LeadershipCross-functional Team LeadershipGlobal SourcingBoard of DirectorsGlobalTalentChange ManagementBusiness PlanningProduct StrategyE-commercerealestateinvestingLeadershipCareer Development CoachingReal EstateStrategic PlanningBusiness Analysis

About

Experience

20 yrs 3 mos

Total Experience

2 yrs 11 mos

Average Tenure

3 yrs 4 mos

Current Experience

Ascending avenue investments

Chief Executive Officer

Jan 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 4 mos

Your money should work for you—even while you sleep!
My goal is to empower busy professionals to build passive income and generational wealth through multifamily apartment investments.
I founded Ascending Avenue to give your future self the freedom to focus on what you love most!

Passive IncomeMulti-Family Properties

Self-employed

Executive Consultant

Jan 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 4 mos

Reshaping organizations to be future-ready.
Driving growth with impactful Digital and Business Strategy.
Establishing Global Capability Centers that lead the industry.
Transforming companies with a revenue-first approach.

Technical LeadershipCross-functional Team LeadershipDigital StrategyGlobal SourcingBoard of DirectorsBusiness Strategy

Smc squared

Senior Director, Client Success

Mar 2022 – Dec 2022 · 9 mos · Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex · Remote

Opened India entities for US companies including oversight on Hiring, Team strategy, Operations and facilities specifically for Callaway Golf. Involved in marketing and sales for new and potential clients at the company level.

Business StrategyBoard of DirectorsGlobalTalentDigital Strategy

Optum

Senior Director, Product Technology, Center for Digital Health & Innovation

Jan 2021 – Mar 2022 · 1 yr 2 mos · Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex

Led the Virtual Care Delivery Organization implementation using Epic as EMR and building UHG's Optum Virtual Care.
Drove healthcare care transformation digitally.

Cross-functional Team LeadershipDigital StrategyChange ManagementBusiness PlanningBusiness Strategy

Hilton

Director Software Engineering

Jun 2019 – Jan 2021 · 1 yr 7 mos · Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex

Moved to Texas to lead the Dallas Technology office for Hilton while delivering a modern website for desktop and mobile using the latest technologies such as React, JavaScript, GraphQL and Couchbase databases.
Formed strong technical teams that built features for majority of the traffic to the new Hilton.com site.

U.s. bank

Group Application Manager

Jul 2018 – May 2019 · 10 mos · Minneapolis, Minnesota

Recruited for year-long project to lead two teams with a total of 27 iOS and backend developers to deliver account and profile features with new customer-facing mobile app. Role included driving agile delivery model with monthly releases through CI/CD pipeline, and leading performance efforts using AppDynamics to determine troublesome code.

Cross-functional Team LeadershipMobile Application DevelopmentDigital StrategyBusiness PlanningProduct Strategy

Target

4 roles

Sr. Engineering Manager

Promoted

Nov 2017 – Jul 2018 · 8 mos · Minneapolis, Minnesota

Led a global team of 15 engineers to leverage a machine learning product for early fault and error detection. As part of program management, successfully directed and challenged team to improve defect detection and alerting mechanisms from 10 minutes to 1 minute.
Directed enterprise changes for digital channels prior to holiday season to ensure stability and performance for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Digital StrategyE-commerceChange ManagementBusiness PlanningBusiness Strategy

IT Delivery Manager

Aug 2015 – Nov 2017 · 2 yrs 3 mos · Minneapolis, Minnesota

Created and oversaw delivery of technology strategies to spur differentiation and enhance revenue, including delivering competitive pricing and data collection strategy, and design improvements for clearance program.

Sr. Release and Project Manager

Mar 2011 – Aug 2015 · 4 yrs 5 mos · Minneapolis, Minnesota

Regularly initiated and directed the implementation of process and efficiency improvements.
Saved 20% of the $20M budget earmarked for the delivery of a vendor solution, while leading a team of over 20 resources.
Improved legacy system performance, which saved $500K per year.
Stabilized store support team operations to resolve and proactively identify and monitor a 2-year backlog of issues.

Technology Leadership Program

Jul 2010 – Mar 2011 · 8 mos · Minneapolis, Minnesota

Securian financial group

2 roles

IT Trainer

Mar 2008 – Jul 2010 · 2 yrs 4 mos · Minneapolis, Minnesota

Hired to integrate and implement a new client-facing system with legacy systems using J2EE and C++. Promoted to IT trainer with responsibility for creating Enterprise Java, Groovy, WebEx and Excel curriculum to teach to classes of 12-16 students each, as well as supervising a team of programmer analysts.