What we do
Some problems sit across a bank, a tech platform, a government agency and a community nonprofit at once. Each one holds part of the picture, and no one holds all of it.
Organizations hire us to design and run closed working sessions that put those parts on one table. We pick the participants, frame the questions, facilitate the day, and write up what the room produced. Mountaineer is built for foundations, agencies, companies and coalitions that need a view no single participant can give them.
How we stay independent
The sponsor funds the room. The sponsor does not set the conclusions.
Participants speak under the Chatham House Rule, and findings belong to the people who produced them.
The Mountaineer Method
Every session runs on a small set of questions. Who is missing from this conversation? What would tell us our assumptions are wrong? What small experiment could we try before making a large commitment?
The goal is clearer thinking. Agreement is welcome when it happens, but it isn't the goal.
First proving ground
Our first subject is human trafficking and technology-facilitated child exploitation. In spring 2027 we plan to convene a closed session in Alexandria with practitioners from banking, technology, law enforcement and victim services, ending in a written findings report.
Founder
Jody Isaak holds a master's degree in intergovernmental management, which led to a policy and planning role at a federal agency. Since then she has worked in local, state and federal government, in nonprofits and in the private sector.
For more than fifteen years she has produced convenings and managed relationships among senior executives, elected officials, diplomats and philanthropists, including more than one hundred programs for a California membership club of business leaders, lawmakers, university chancellors and foreign diplomats.