Resume

JodyNovakoski

Product and Operations Executive

  • Product Leadership
  • AI in Production
  • Operating Systems at Scale
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Professional summary

Where product, operations, and data meet

Product and operations executive with 14+ years building education companies, new business units, and the operating systems that let them scale.

I founded a Minecraft-based K-12 company whose platform became the foundation of MinecraftEDU, built a tutoring business unit that became its company's most profitable, recovered a failing $12M state contract, and rebuilt a product organization after a founder exit while revenue grew about 80% in 18 months.

I build hands-on: three production AI systems, an in-house operations and student data platform, and the data layer leaders use to make decisions.

My best work happens where product, operations, and data meet, usually in the problem nobody owns yet.

Career highlights

Results, by the numbers

  • ~80%
    Revenue growth in 18 months

    About 80% revenue growth in 18 months at Brains & Motion Education, with customer satisfaction rising from 2.8 to 4.8 after rebuilding the product organization from 4 to 23 people.

  • 47%
    Lower cost than the vendor

    A most-profitable business unit, built from zero: BookNook Tutoring replaced a VIPKid vendor relationship at 47% lower cost.

  • $9M
    Contract value preserved

    A failing $12M state contract recovered: BookNook's Texas Education Agency contract moved from D minus to B plus compliance, preserving roughly $9M in contract value.

  • 3,200
    Lessons in 11 months at 32% of budget

    3,200 lessons in 11 months at 32% of budget: Wisewire's statewide pandemic-response curriculum for Arizona, K-5, across four core subjects.

  • 3
    Production AI systems shipped

    Three production AI systems shipped, including generative curriculum tooling that cut lesson production from about 20 hours to about 2.

  • 0 → $M
    Company founded and scaled

    A company founded and grown to multi-million-dollar scale: GamED Academy, whose Minecraft learning platform IP became the foundation of MinecraftEDU following Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang.

Customer satisfaction

2.84.8

Product org, in-house

423

TEA contract compliance

D−B+

Tutors per student per year

3–41.2

Hours per lesson

~20~2

Professional experience

Built, rebuilt, and scaled

Select a role to see the details.

  1. National after-school and enrichment programming company serving schools and districts, post Series B.

    • Rebuilt the product organization after the founding team exited, growing it from 4 to 23 in-house staff plus about 67 across a data team, contractors, and an outsourced engineering firm, with ownership of Engineering and Curriculum.
    • Drove about 80% revenue growth in 18 months while customer satisfaction rose from 2.8 to 4.8, installing roadmaps, OKRs, an operating cadence, and quality standards where none existed.
    • Built BAM Admin, the company's in-house operations, program management, and student data platform, giving leaders a single source of operational truth across schools, instructors, attendance, and training, and replacing spreadsheets and manual tracking.
    • Shipped three production AI systems: an LLM instructor-support layer in Moodle, a Gemini-powered natural-language reporting layer for district partners, and generative curriculum tooling that cut lesson production from about 20 hours to 2.
    • Piloted, priced, and rolled out a new full-service program model, and aligned product with Sales and Customer Success through the Salesforce rollout that became the company's sales-data backbone.
    • Organized the company's data with SQL and Looker, building the dashboards leadership used for product, sales, and operations decisions, and promoted a data-entry analyst into a people manager along the way.

  2. UK-headquartered online tutoring platform.

    • Led the U.S. market launch for a UK tutoring platform, standing up onboarding, service delivery, performance reporting, and operating playbooks from scratch and building early relationships with U.S. educators and institutions. The company wound down the U.S. expansion after six months.

  3. SaaS provider of online literacy supports and tutoring for K-12 schools.

    • Founded the BookNook Tutoring business unit from zero to replace a VIPKid vendor relationship, building the software and operating model and setting tutor pricing and unit economics; it ran at 47% lower cost than the vendor and became the company's most profitable unit.
    • Cut the number of different tutors a student saw each year from three or four down to 1.2 through platform and process design, giving students real continuity with one tutor.
    • Recovered a failing $12M Texas Education Agency contract from D minus to B plus compliance, preserving roughly $9M in contract value and the client relationship.
    • Led the realignment of 1,600 California literacy lessons to Texas TEKS standards across grades K to 8 on BookNook's literacy platform.
    • Served as senior advisor to the CEO on strategic initiatives, investor and board relations, and revenue trajectory, provided interim leadership during transitions and restructuring, and ran KPI visibility across Partnerships, Product, and Engineering.

  4. Learning design company building curriculum and content for publishers and states.

    • Owned a statewide pandemic-response curriculum partnership for Arizona with StrongMind, delivering 3,200 K-5 lessons across four core subjects in 11 months while using only 32% of the contracted budget.
    • Led 14 product owners and 500+ freelancers across content design, media, and data, building the onboarding systems, project training, and production processes that let a distributed team ship at that pace.
    • Held full end-to-end P&L accountability, with continuous review and quick pivots that protected gross-profit targets and content quality against a real-time client timeline.
    • Managed production risk across learning platforms and delivery methods, running custom workflow management in Smartsheet and coordinating offshore teams in India and Pakistan.

  5. Minecraft-based K-12 education company offering curriculum in the core subjects.

    • Built a Minecraft-based K-12 education company from nothing into a multi-million-dollar business; the platform IP later became the foundation of MinecraftEDU following Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang.
    • Designed and ran server infrastructure with 20+ learning environments serving 6,000+ students every six weeks, along with the learning management system students used to move through the content.
    • Developed a K-12 curriculum aligned to Massachusetts state standards in the core subjects, with Minecraft designers and curriculum writers building the learning inside the game itself.
    • Owned the full revenue cycle as founder, setting pricing, leading sales, and building the website and social marketing that reached parents looking for nontraditional learning options.
    • Managed designers, curriculum writers, sales and marketing, and teaching staff, including offshore teams in Macedonia and South Africa, and partnered with customer stakeholders on program objectives and implementation.

Earlier experience

    • Productivity and operations consulting across industries: identified value-added activities and benchmarks for clients, then built the plans and execution to hit them.
    • Supported revenue recognition and expenditure control to keep clients on their profit objectives, and managed offshore teams delivering large-scale education platform solutions.

AI in production

Shipped, used, and trusted

  • Instructor support in Moodle

    An LLM support layer embedded in the Moodle training environment answered program and curriculum questions for instructors nationwide, reinforced training, and removed a support-escalation bottleneck for central staff.

  • Natural-language reporting for district partners

    Consolidated BAM Admin, Salesforce, and Moodle data behind a Gemini-powered SQL and Looker layer so partners could query outcomes directly, eliminating an analyst queue.

  • Generative curriculum tooling

    20h → 2h per lesson

    Cut lesson production from about 20 hours to about 2 per lesson, with human review kept in the loop.

The failure that taught the most

“A confidently wrong number is worse than no number.”

Fixing it upstream

When the reporting layer began returning fabricated values, I traced it to incomplete source records, such as missing school assignments and attendance gaps from manual entry, rather than prompting, and fixed it upstream in data quality.

Responsible-use guardrails. Accuracy checks, privacy and sensitive-data expectations, and review checklists paired with every AI workflow, so speed never came at the cost of trust.

Skills

What I bring to the table

Core competencies

  • Product Vision and Roadmaps
  • Operating Cadence and OKRs
  • P&L and Unit Economics
  • 0 to 1 Business Building
  • AI in Production
  • Data Platforms (SQL, Looker)
  • Portfolio Governance and PMO
  • Org Design and Team Scaling
  • Turnarounds and Recovery
  • K-12 Curriculum and Standards
  • Pricing and Packaging
  • Offshore and Distributed Teams
  • Executive and Board Advisory
  • Build vs Buy Decisions
  • Nonprofit Governance

Tools and platforms

  • Salesforce
  • SQL
  • Looker
  • Moodle
  • SAP
  • Smartsheet
  • Jira
  • Figma
  • Cursor
  • Claude Code
  • Gemini
  • Shopify
  • Paycom
  • Agile (Scrum and Kanban)

Global and offshore delivery leadership

Led distributed and offshore teams at every stage of my career, plus offshore delivery of education platform solutions as a consultant at SKI Designs.

  • GamED AcademyMacedoniaSouth Africa
  • BookNookIndia
  • WisewireIndiaPakistan
  • Brains & MotionChinaIndiaPakistanSouth America

Pricing and packaging

Set pricing at every stage of building a business.

  1. GamED Academy

    Founder pricing and packaging

  2. BookNook Tutoring

    Tutor pricing and unit economics for the new unit

  3. Brains & Motion

    Pricing for the full-service program model I piloted and rolled out

Social impact and community leadership

Building pathways for young people

Aug 2025 – Jun 2026

Next Generation Bull Riding Foundation

Co-Founder and Executive Chair

501(c)(3) Nonprofit

The Next Generation Bull Riding Foundation is a…

  • National youth development pathway

    Gives young bull riders a safe, structured way into the sport in place of fragmented, inconsistent entry points.

  • Safety-first system

    Youth protection policies, arena and chute safety standards, protective equipment requirements, and emergency response protocols.

  • National development curriculum

    Rider skill progression, physical training, mental performance, and ecosystem education on roles such as bull fighters, stock contractors, and event production, plus education for parents.

  • National event series at PBR Velocity Tour stops

    Youth Ride-Off events with a repeatable model built on age divisions from 6 to 17, multi-round formats, and coaching clinics, and a tiered sponsorship model from community sponsors to national tour partners.

  • 12 years

    Jenison High School and Jenison Junior High Equestrian Teams

    Coach · Jenison, MI

    Twelve years developing student riders and team leaders.

  • 4-H

    Coach and Mentor

    Active coach and mentor for youth agricultural and leadership projects.

  • 3rd Dan

    Tae Kwon Do

    Black Belt

    International competitive coaching experience.

Education and certification

Grand Valley State University

  • Master of Business Administration (Honors)

    Grand Valley State University · 2012

    Emphasis in International Business and Marketing.

  • B.S. Information Systems (Honors)

    Grand Valley State University · 2006

    Emphasis in Data Management.

  • PMP

    Project Management Professional

Have a problem nobody owns yet?

I'd love to hear about it. Reach out by email anytime.

Email me