By Stewart Waddell

3rd April 2025

Welcome Beth Pearson

Our team is growing, and this week, we are delighted to welcome our latest superstar, Beth Peason, who joins the team as a Senior Payroll Professional.

Beth has worked in payroll since leaving college when she started on the Apprenticeship programme at a national payroll bureau, where she honed her payroll skills working on complex payrolls.

She then moved to a large corporate payroll bureau, where the role was fully remote, but she missed working in an office environment. Payroll can be very stressful, and working from an office gives access to the support of others.

Beth’s next move was to an accountancy practice, mainly working with small, family business payrolls.

She is now taking on her next challenge, with Ascend, where she can get her teeth stuck into working with larger clients again and build on what she most loves about working in payroll.

“I like working with bigger clients and getting to know them. When you have worked with clients for a number of years, it is really nice to build those relationships. I knew what they needed, and they knew what I could do for them.”

Stewart Waddell, Ascend’s CEO commented,

“Having worked with Beth previously, I knew she would be a great fit for Ascend and our clients. Although payroll is highly technical, the real difference between service providers is the relationships you build with your clients and the trust they have in you. Beth gets this and very much values this part of the role.”

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About the Author

Stewart Waddell

Stewart has only ever worked in payroll and built his early career working within the payroll team of an accountancy practice, alongside Richard Rowell.

From 2013, Stewart was a director at a payroll bureau where he helped it grow into a 130-strong organisation with a specialist education division. After a short stint in the world of large corporate payroll providers, he realised he wanted to build something less impersonal.

So in 2024, he teamed up with Richard Rowell to set up Ascend Payroll. Both had seen managed payroll clients treated as just another number, stuck with impersonal service and annual price hikes. They knew it could be done better.

As CEO, Stewart is the driving force behind Ascend’s customer promise and building a culture whereby ‘do the right thing’ is embedded throughout every aspect of the business.

For Stewart, great payroll always comes back to people.

“Payroll is personal. Every payslip is someone’s rent, their food shop, their plans for the month, so getting it right every time is the minimum.
What clients remember is how you treat them. They want an expert who knows their business, picks up the phone and tells them the truth, even when it’s not what they want to hear. Give them that at a fair price, and they’ll stay with you for years.”

That’s the standard he sets for the whole team, and it’s why Ascend’s values will always be so much more than just words on the Boardroom wall.

Let’s have a chat about how we can transform your payroll

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