Experience that informs the work
Ownership + Governance
Former principal, shareholder, and board member of a multidisciplinary A/E firm.
Firm Operations + Leadership
Experience across staffing, organizational structure, leadership development, business development, and firm governance.
Project Delivery + Economics
Direct responsibility for proposals, fees, staffing, client commitments, delivery oversight, and project profitability.
Founder-led by design
Aaron works directly with every Schemata client.
There is no handoff from the person who earns the engagement to a separate delivery team. Aaron leads the conversations, diagnosis, interpretation of findings, and priority decisions with firm leadership.
Better firms do not happen by accident. They are designed.
Aaron D. Jenks
Founder | AEC Advisor
Aaron Jenks, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, has spent more than 30 years inside architecture and engineering firms as an architect, project manager, business developer, department leader, principal, owner, shareholder, and board member.
That progression gave him a view of the firm that extends well beyond individual projects. His responsibilities have included client relationships, proposals and fees, staffing, project delivery, financial performance, organizational structure, leadership development, business development, governance, and ownership.
Aaron began his career in architecture in 1996 and later founded and operated his own practice. He subsequently built and led an architecture function within a construction and design-build organization, where he worked at the intersection of design, construction, clients, staffing, and project economics.
He later spent nearly eight years helping lead a multidisciplinary architecture and engineering firm, including approximately seven years as a shareholder and board member. His work included firm strategy, organizational structure, staffing and scheduling, leadership development, business development, financial performance, governance, and ownership.
Across those roles, one pattern appeared repeatedly: problems that look isolated rarely are.
A project problem may begin with a client commitment. A staffing problem may reflect unclear priorities. A capable project manager may still struggle when responsibility is not matched by authority, information, or support. Growth can expose operating habits that worked at a smaller scale but no longer fit the firm.
That experience became the foundation for Schemata.