Ashley Marsh

RA

Senior Director, Business Development

San Francisco, CA, USA

Responsible for securing strategically aligned partners, supporters, and funding to advance the mission and secure the long-term health of the organization, Ashley guides the stewardship of existing relationships as well as the identification, qualification, and cultivation of new ones. She works to ensure that the impact the organization’s thought and design leaders aim to see in the world is fully resourced and recognized. She serves the North American studios by developing and driving earned income strategy and tactics, and has been with MASS since 2018.

Based in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land, Ashley is an avid bikepacker and a regular volunteer farmer at the largest agricultural site in the city, Alemany Farm, which gives all the food they harvest to neighbors for free.

A licensed architect, Ashley’s early career specialized in consulting on the upstream stages of project and owner readiness, advising a spectrum of education, technology, creative, and nonprofit organizations in design, strategy and change management capacities. She helped a public school in Oakland, California win a $10 million XQ Super School grant, was named ‘40 under 40’ by the San Francisco Business Times, and was part of the team that wrote The Third Teacher–one of Fast Company’s best design books of 2010. Her research has received funding from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and been included in the conference proceedings for the Environmental Design Research Association, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. She is a recipient of the Design Futures Council Emerging Leader award and serves on the Advisory Board of the Boston Architectural College.