Alakesha Murray-Razzaqel is the president and CEO of AskAscend Virtual Assistance, a subsidiary of Ascend Management Services. She applies over 20 years of managerial proficiency toward supporting small businesses and non-profit organizations to achieve their greater business goals. She launched her career in entertainment as an NBC Page and Press Assistant for CBS Corp., later developing a host of business skills in construction management and real estate, with her longest tenure in higher education.

Alakesha served as a Student Affairs Officer at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies and as Assistant Director of the Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. During her time at Columbia, she developed student programming and events that heightened the academic experience and promoted the school's initiatives.

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in communications, Alakesha studied for a year at La Fundación Ortega y Gasset in Toledo, Spain, as an exchange student. She later earned an M.A. in communications and education from Columbia University’s Teachers College.

As a foster sister and later surrogate foster parent to a number of foster youths, she hopes to someday develop programs that will help improve the life outcomes for young people aging out of the foster care system, the subject of her master thesis. Alakesha is a native New Yorker and holds a New York State real estate agent license.