Thien Van Tran

Managing Director

About Thien Van Tran

Thien has over a decade of experience focused on M&A, capital raising, and corporate finance, and investment banking. Throughout his career, Thien has been involved in a wide variety of transactions across various industries, providing founders and management teams with a highly unique perspective into the M&A process.

Prior to Ascend, Thien was a member of the investment banking teams at Evergreen Advisors, Regions Bank, and Cassel Salpeter & Co. He started his career as an engineer at the Space and Naval Warfare Center.

Education
  • MBA from the University of Miami
  • BS in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from the University of Miami

We are aligned—not just as professionals and colleagues, but as principled human beings. Any decisions that might typically be difficult in other environments are remarkably simpler here, as we trust one another to do the right thing for our clients and each other.

A friend once described it as the "actualization of the American Dream," and I’m appropriating it here without his knowledge. There are great owners who have worked their entire lives to build companies and organizations, and to be able to find great outcomes for them is gratifying. On the other side, helping investors put their capital to work in companies, allowing them to strengthen markets and better serve communities is rewarding as well.

An unofficial (likely unknowing and probably unwilling) mentor once told me, “Do the right thing, and the rest will follow.” Don’t be so focused on getting the financial outcome or success you want that you end up sacrificing your morals or beliefs. Just do what you believe is right, and the rest will work itself out.

A professional WWE wrestler. I even wrestled in high school. But as a 5’7” senior waiting for my second growth spurt, realizing that most in the WWE were several times my size, I suddenly heard another calling: financial modeling.

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