Hidden Gems: Meet Ashley Donahue of Orange Door Consulting

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Donahue. 

Hi Ashley, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
My name is Ashley Donahue and I started my career while I was in college. I was working with my father at a startup and was helping him in his Private Equity career here in Kansas City where I was born and raised. I began just helping him with administrative tasks, simple marketing, and contracts that he needed reread. I then began becoming involved in the day-to-day operations, little did we know we were creating a full business from the ground up. After spending time in both PE and SB I started to be given bigger tasks, such as working on new developments and seeing how the project flow worked. I then had my certification in Interior Design and a grasp around the business so I moved into a director role of Design Director and designed and remodeled hundreds of commercial and residential homes in the greater KC and Kansas areas. As the business was about to move into its next chapter my father suddenly passed away. I then had to handle a lot of very much adult decisions and business decisions everyday month to month whilst grieving and figuring out my own career and staying afloat. I was also at the time assisting in the Music Industry with contracts in New York and was flying back and forth. I was then offered a job with a capital firm out there and started spending more of my time out there. When I was there, I was spending my days at the firm and my nights creating business for my own including, raising capital, mergers, and acquisitions for joint ventures, contracts, negotiations, and developments. As my network began to expand, I started merging my businesses and helping people as much as I could to create beneficial and long-lasting partnerships. I then, when COVID-19 occurred suffered when not only financial firms took a hit as did developments which were my ventures. With this downtime, I was able to figure out how to put my business together more and see how I can make this my full-time baby. I then started reaching out to all of the people I had worked with and saw how they would need business development from starting the company or coming in fixing their infrastructure, raising capital, or even making their websites. All of a sudden, I started receiving referrals and the wonderful people I had been working for became my clientele. I now am in the process of bringing together my connections and network in the Midwest to east coast as well as the projects I work on in California and in Vegas. Orange Door Consulting has become my full career and helping companies has become my passion. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There have been so many struggles. According to Instagram, I am sure it wouldn’t appear that way but no matter how many self-help and business books I read there has been no better teacher than throwing myself into the busiest city in the world. 

As I said previously while navigating my own career I have had to deal with the company of my fathers, his passing, and all the struggles that come along with that. 

I have had a Harvard education in business hard knocks and money management at its finest. But the best things I have learned and that has helped me is finding guidance from my mentors and being vulnerable and honest with the people you are working with. It is not easy, at all, but it seems to make the difficult discussions that much easier. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Orange Door Consulting?
Orange Door Consulting is a personal consulting firm that I am the founder and CEO of. Orange Door starts is here to help your company from the ground up or a stabilized company in their infrastructure. 

We help with the basics down to helping getting websites set up, creating an online presence, adjusting a CRM or creating it for you, project management, marketing materials, etc. 

The other end of Orange Door is the development side. I also help assist companies raising capital and with Commercial Developments throughout the United States. Whether that means finding investors, partners, or capital contributors we help put those parties together and help their projects come to fruition. 

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I have many mentors, along with colleagues and partners that have truly made me who I am today. 

My father was always a leading force for me, I worked with him every day for almost six years. He taught me things that I never would have learned in school and things that have helped me navigate the way I do business now. But on top of that, when he passed my father’s friends and partners truly stepped in. I made it a priority in my life to keep them in mine. There are about six men and women that he surrounded himself with on a weekly if not daily basis that have given me advice from legal to financial and marketing. They have changed and continue to challenge the way I look at business. They are all extremely private people so I will keep them out of this but without them, I wouldn’t be here. 

I also was very lucky to when I moved to New York to have a support group of talented men and women that surrounded me and never questioned my abilities. This was a group of musicians, producers, investment bankers, CEOS, and hard hitters in the development world and all I wanted from them was guidance and they definitely gave it to me, and without that, I wouldn’t have made half the strides that I have in these past three years. Their ideas and support helped grow my business and expand my horizons on ways to approach things that I would never thought of. 

Contact Info:

• Email: adonahue@orangedoorconsulting.net
• Website: www.orangedoorconsulting.net
• Instagram: AMJLDONAHUE

Image Credits:
Beatrice Genco
Sasha Prendes