The person behind the work

I've spent nearly two decades helping organizations figure out what their data is trying to tell them and building the teams and systems to act on it. I've done this inside startups, mid-market companies, and global enterprises with over 40,000 employees. I've built data teams from scratch, shipped analytics platforms used by millions, and sat in the rooms where the decisions actually get made.

But I didn't get here through a straight line. And I think that's the point.

Jason Lokkesmoe — Founder, Meadow Lake Consulting

Hi, I'm Jason.

I founded Meadow Lake Consulting because I kept seeing the same pattern: organizations that knew data was important but didn't have the leadership, team, or tools to actually do something with it. The big consulting firms offered strategy decks that cost a fortune and gathered dust. Small shops offered tools but no strategic context. Nobody was offering both — the thinking and the doing — in a way that actually fit.

My career has been spent at the intersection of data, technology, and business. I've built data teams from scratch, led analytics organizations, shipped data products, and sat at the executive table advocating for data-driven decision making. I've seen what works, what doesn't, and what it actually takes to turn "we should be more data-driven" into a reality.

An unconventional path

I started my career in Oregon as an apprentice to a master carpenter. From there, I joined a nonprofit missions organization in Oakland, California, and spent four years as a youth pastor, working with teenagers navigating the hardest parts of their lives. Along the way, I became a professional endurance athlete, racing internationally for three years on the top U.S. professional cycling team.

These experiences taught me things no business school could. Carpentry taught me to measure before you cut and to respect what's structural versus what's cosmetic. Ministry taught me to listen for what people aren't saying. Cycling taught me that sustained performance comes from discipline, strategy, and knowing your role within a team.

From marketing to data to leadership

My professional career began in international digital marketing and lead generation, where I developed a deep understanding of how customers move from awareness to decision. That experience pulled me into product analytics, where I could see the entire customer lifecycle through data for the first time. From there, I built and led analytics and data science teams at the University of Phoenix and Pearson, where I was responsible for turning massive amounts of educational data into products and insights that served millions of learners and thousands of internal stakeholders.

At Pearson, I built a complete analytics function from the ground up in twelve months, created an API-based analytics platform delivering insights in near-real-time, and championed a culture of data-driven decision-making across an organization of more than 40,000 people.

Meadow by a lake — a painted landscape of meadows, mountains, and sunrise, inspired by the meaning of Lokkesmoe in Norwegian

Making the invisible, visible

There's a reason that phrase means something to me beyond business strategy.

I didn't learn to read until I was 17. Through my entire childhood, I was reading at a kindergarten level, and I hid it from everyone. I grew up believing I was the definition of stupid, terrified of being discovered. School didn't cause the problem, but it highlighted every deficiency. I worked tirelessly to keep my struggle invisible.

I didn't know I had dyslexia until years later, when we discovered my son's. That's when the secret finally came out.

I share this because it's the foundation of everything I do. I know what it's like for something critical to be invisible, for the real problem to be hiding underneath what everyone can see. I know what it's like to operate in a fog, compensating for something you can't name. And I know the relief that comes when someone finally helps you see it clearly.

That's what I do for organizations now. I find the invisible things — the misalignments, the data gaps, the broken handoffs, the metrics nobody trusts — and I make them visible so people can act with clarity instead of guessing.

Why Meadow Lake Consulting

After years inside large organizations, I saw the same pattern repeated everywhere: companies investing in data and AI tools without the strategy, governance, or organizational readiness to make them work. Leadership teams flying blind because their reporting couldn't keep up with the business. And consultancies delivering slide decks that died on arrival because nobody owned the execution.

I started Meadow Lake Consulting to do it differently. To bring the perspective of someone who's been an operator, a builder, and a leader, and to work alongside clients as a partner who stays until the work sticks. Not to create dependency, but to build capability.

What I'm working on today

Beyond Meadow Lake Consulting, I serve as the Chief Data Officer at Columbia Southern University, where I lead a team of twelve in building data-driven and AI capabilities to support the university's growth and mission. I'm also part of AskMeno, an education startup dedicated to bridging the literacy divide for Pre-K through first-grade learners, a cause deeply personal to me.

Everything I do connects back to the same belief: people and organizations have more potential than they can see. Sometimes they just need someone to help them find it.

Background

Experience at a glance

Let's have a real conversation

I don't do sales calls. I have conversations. If what you've read here resonates, I'd like to hear where you are and what you're working through. The best engagements start with honesty on both sides.

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