we are where strategy meets leadership.
Queenside Ventures is an award-winning consulting and media firm helping executives, athletes, and brands achieve strategic clarity through chess.
We specialize in chess-based leadership - a signature framework that reshapes how people think, decide, and lead. Through consulting, coaching, and creative storytelling, we teach clients to approach challenges the way a grandmaster approaches the board: with vision, composure, and precision.
At Queenside, chess isn’t a metaphor. It’s the method.
Every engagement starts with the same question: what’s your next move?
Our Approach
We work with leaders across industries - from professional sports to boardrooms, from startups to civic institutions - to help them make decisions that last beyond the moment.
Our work blends psychology, performance strategy, and brand storytelling.
Whether we’re guiding an executive through change, training an athlete in mental agility, or helping a brand align its mission and message, the goal is always the same: to build strategic confidence, inspire tactical brilliance, and ignite transformational leadership.
That’s the Queenside way.
Our Founder & CEO
Ashley lynn priore
She’s not just playing the game differently - she’s changing the rules entirely.
Ashley Lynn Priore is the strategist leaders call when it’s time to think differently - and lead with precision. A nationally recognized chess innovator, entrepreneur, and civic disruptor, Ashley is a leading expert in strategic decision-making, systems thinking, and intergenerational power-building. She’s transforming chess from a game into a global framework for agency, equity, and leadership - one bold move at a time.
She founded Queenside Ventures to help executives, athletes, and mission-driven brands achieve strategic clarity, decision architecture, and purpose-driven communications. Her client roster includes top CEOs, entrepreneurs, and NFL powerhouses.
Whether advising NFL athletes or shaping the next wave of changemakers, Ashley is turning every chessboard into a launching pad for impact. She doesn’t just challenge systems - she rearchitects them.
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Ashley is also the Founder, President & CEO of Queens Gambit, a national nonprofit using chess to equip 2,000+ youth annually with critical thinking, confidence, and leadership skills.
A former chess phenom who began teaching at age 8, Ashley launched Queens Gambit at 14 to democratize access to chess and reimagine it as a tool for personal and social transformation. She has since built a first-of-its-kind career using chess to help people navigate complexity, lead boldly, and change systems from within.
By 25, she had founded seven ventures - including the nation’s first youth-led campaign strategy firm - and led the national push for a White House Youth Policy Council. In 2019, she made history as one of Pennsylvania’s youngest candidates for public office, quickly becoming a rising force in civic reform.
Ashley is also a seasoned board director, having held leadership roles on more than a dozen nonprofit boards and was appointed in 2023 by Governor Josh Shapiro to the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Next Gen Engagement.
Her thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, Fox Sports, Katie Couric Media, and Elite Daily. Her honors include Forbes 30 Under 30, Obama Foundation USA Leader, and a feature in The Epic Mentor Guide alongside Hoda Kotb, Tyra Banks, and Bobbi Brown.
Strategic ADvisor
Audrey Russo
Audrey Russo is an accomplished angel investor, corporate board advisor, and dynamic speaker.
She is currently the President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the region's largest and most influential membership organization for technology and innovation. Under her leadership, the council fosters cutting-edge innovation, builds vital business connections, provides critical resources, and advocates for policies that support technology-driven companies.
Russo also leads Fortyx80, the nonprofit arm of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, which strengthens the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by improving access to capital, offering educational programming, developing technology talent pipelines, and positioning Southwestern Pennsylvania as a premier global hub for startups, talent, and technology.
An expert in cross-sector collaboration, economic development, and entrepreneurship, Russo has held senior leadership roles at major multinational companies.
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She served as the Director of Global Information Systems at Reynolds Metals Corporation and as the Global Director of IR and HR Systems at Alcoa. Later, as Vice President and CFO at Maya Designs, she led digital transformation initiatives for some of the world's largest organizations.
Russo is deeply committed to the nonprofit sector and has served on numerous boards, including CORO Center for Civic Leadership, Carnegie Science Center, Vibrant Pittsburgh, Power of 32, World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, City Lab, City of Asylum Pittsburgh, the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, and the Regional Industrial Development Corporation.
In addition to her leadership roles, Russo is a former Board member of Paragon Medical, a leading provider of highly engineered medical components. She is one of the longest-serving Commissioners for the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission and currently serves on the board of MW Industries.
As an investor and business advisor, Russo co-founded Donajo, a Florida-based clothing company, where she still serves on the board, and is an active investor in Reinforced Ventures. She also provides strategic guidance to Queenside Ventures, a women-led leadership consulting firm, and advises the U.S. Department of State on initiatives in Croatia.
Russo holds a Master of Public Administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School.