I’m Jessica Lackey - your McKinsey-meets-mystical business growth strategist.

Consider me the thinking person's business strategist and the antidote to the "growth at all costs" online business guru.

As an expertise-based business systems consultant and guide, I bring both corporate sophistication and soulful wisdom to the table to help established service providers build sustainable businesses. I’m known for my exceptional depth of business knowledge, genuine care for client's success, and ability to make complex business concepts practical and actionable.

I work with expertise-based business owners at a crossroads:

→ When you don't know what to do next

→ When you don’t know where to go from here

→ When you aren’t sure how to move in that direction without hustling harder

→ When you're tempted to turn to surface-level strategies

Because you were probably taught to simply: "Change your prices! Change your thoughts! Manage your time!”

But I know from experience that real growth requires diving deeper.

Let me back up a second and tell you how I got here…

I was trained as an industrial engineer, where I learned the fundamental skills of embedding operational efficiency and optimization into businesses (and humans). 

I built my business background at McKinsey and Company Consulting and Harvard Business School, honing my diagnostic skills with projects and cases covering a variety of industries and companies. I spent my early 30s climbing the corporate ladder at Nike, moving into expanded leadership roles and being seen as “high-potential talent”.

Until I felt the impact of putting profit over people and sacrificing my body and soul to the corporate, capitalistic altar. I started to have some health issues and saw that something needed to change. I no longer wanted the next rung on the ladder and needed to look deeply inward first.

I no longer wanted to play the surface-level status games in corporate business: how I needed to dress to “look like a leader”, how to navigate getting promoted versus taking care of your people, how to speak truth without getting labeled as bossy or cold. This advice was promoting an image of surface-level, egocentric success without allowing for rooted growth.

But I didn’t quite know how to choose a different path.

So, I took steps to rewild myself and build new roots: nutrition certification, becoming a life coach, embracing more somatic, spiritual, and feminist practices. I started Deeper Business consulting in 2021. 

I thought when I broke out into entrepreneurship, I would see a different approach. But, I saw these same extractive business practices replicated in the entrepreneurship space. Continuing to perpetuate surface-level, cookie-cutter roadmaps as the pathway towards business growth. 

  • Outdated formulas

  • Hiding the advantages that gave someone quick success

  • Realities of how these “seven-figure” entrepreneurs made their money off the backs of their underpaid, overworked team

But I kept encountering what I call "the Entrepreneurial Mirage"...

An endless stream of promises, playbooks, and proven formulas that were supposed to be the answer to business success.

Despite my background as a business strategist, even I got pulled into chasing tactics and quick fixes that didn't align with how my business (and most businesses) actually work.

I saw the gap between what people were being sold and what they truly needed.

Countless experts were teaching individual pieces—marketing, sales, operations—but no one was teaching business owners how these pieces fit together into a cohesive whole.

No one was teaching the fundamental skills of how to run a business.

Instead, expertise-based business owners were being sold generic playbooks that ignored their unique business models and needs.

They were told they needed fancy funnels, complex tech stacks, and big teams—even when those solutions weren't right for their business.

These online business gurus taught you how to "play business" rather than build one.

That’s why I created Deeper Foundations.

What's missing isn't secrets or strategies—it's systems.

Real, practical business systems designed specifically for expertise-based businesses.

Systems that work together, compound over time and create sustainable results without burning you out. My approach combines rigorous business thinking with a human-centered philosophy. We start with real conversations about your vision and values, then build the foundational structures your business needs.

No cookie-cutter solutions, no manipulation tactics, no pressure to scale or adopt a business model (courses, agency, community) that doesn’t serve you.

 Lineage

We teach from our experiences, and my work stands on the shoulders of my teachers.

We teach from our experiences, and my work stands on the shoulders of my teachers. Citing them here does not advocate for their whole body of work but it does name the influences on my work for your reference.

Influences

Authors and Books that I frequently reference and who influence my work:

  • Win Without Pitching and The Four Conversations - Blair Enns

  • The Business of Expertise - David C. Baker

  • Give to Grow and The Snowball System - Mo Bunnell

  • Stand The F*ck Out - Louis Grenier

  • Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry - Robin Wall Kimmerer

  • Emergent Strategy - adrienne maree brown

  • Proposals for the Feminine Economy/Business Birthing Handbook - Jennifer Armbrust

  • Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive - Jonathan Fields

  • Working Genius Podcast - Pat Lencioni

  • The ONE Thing - Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

  • Deep Work and Digital Minimalism - Cal Newport

Jessica is one of the smartest business strategists I've ever met.

I leave every conversation with more clarity than when I arrived, and she's helped me take countless next steps when I had no clue where to go in business.

– Amelia H.

It’s time to be guided by a business operations consultant who has real-world credibility and a deep background both inside and outside of online business.

Whether you're refining your foundations or just starting to build them, my role is to help you build a business that becomes more powerful, predictably profitable, purposeful, and is designed specifically for you.