Professional Profile

Bringing together a distinctive set of skills and experiences, Aaron has a deep background in technology, business, law, leadership, and organizational change. He began doing computer consulting nearly four decades ago, working with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors on projects centering primarily on the intersection of technology and finance. Because so many of the issues around technology in organizations require the ability to lead and influence change, he obtained a master’s degree in organizational and educational leadership. In the 2000s, as regulatory and policy issues became more prominent, he went to law school, focusing on contracting, compliance, and intellectual property, as well as serving as editor of the law review. In recent years, his work has been with Square Lines LLC, a consulting firm he co-founded in 2009. He has been regularly called upon to deliver presentations to audiences and has authored and co-authored published articles on a variety of topics.

Professional Biography

Following its founding in the early 1980s, Aaron built and ran a technology consulting company for over a decade, providing online and networked solutions to organizations ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies. Projects included some of the earliest business and team collaboration tools centered on the then-nascent Internet, business analytics tools, and data-driven adaptive education products.

Through the rest of the 1990s, Aaron focused on educational technology, working with educational institutions to harness the power of the Internet to provide professional development to staff and direct instruction to students. He developed capital bond strategies to fund and support the work, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for public school technology initiatives. As a side project, he founded and ran a nonprofit organization creating standards-based content using multimedia and nation-wide content development, ultimately serving hundreds of thousands of students.

Beginning in 1999, Aaron shifted into integrating work with statewide finance policy and data-driven decisionmaking and accountability. He led a team to streamline and standardize data definitions and collection while overseeing the allocation and distribution of $5.2B in public funds. This work involved extensive collaboration with a variety of public and private stakeholders as well as legislators and the media.

After receiving national recognition for his work, an opportunity arose to assume the leadership of a nonprofit providing services and support to the educational institutions across the Western United States. Over Aaron’s tenure, he grew the revenues and staff of the organization by a factor of three, through increasing member value and broadening the range of services offered. Meanwhile, he also served as adjunct faculty in both graduate and undergraduate programs, teaching technology, leadership, and project management courses.

In 2009, Aaron came full circle, bringing a return to consulting. His work now focuses more explicitly on projects involving finance and accounting, and business processes. Following the founding of Square Lines with one other principal, the company has grown into a team providing services to clients across the globe. These clients represent nonprofits and associations, governmental agencies and universities, and businesses large and small.