Jackie Cook launches Momentum Group around a new idea: navigation

Momentum Group founder Jackie Cook is positioning leadership development around “navigation” as organizations face AI-driven change, uncertainty and faster-moving workplaces. The Overland Park, Kansas firm is also building AI-enabled tools to help professionals, founders and companies make better decisions at scale. Why it matters: - Jackie Cook is arguing that traditional leadership training is not built for the speed and uncertainty leaders face now. - Momentum Group’s model shifts the focus from generic leadership skills to decision-making, clarity and fit in real-world conditions. - The approach extends beyond coaching into AI-enabled products aimed at helping people and organizations make better choices. What happened: - Cook, the CEO and founder of Momentum Group, introduced her leadership framework in Overland Park, Kansas. - The firm is centered on “navigation,” a term Cook uses to describe leading when conditions are unclear and constantly changing. - The company is building AI-enabled platforms for professionals, founders and organizations. - Influential Women featured Cook’s profile and the Momentum Group approach. The details: - Cook spent more than 20 years working across product, operations, strategy and organizational leadership. - Her earlier career included leadership roles at Mercer and Marsh McLennan. - She holds degrees in Psychology and Organizational Leadership from Penn State. - Cook also completed advanced studies in artificial intelligence, design thinking and leadership through MIT, Vanderbilt and Wharton. - Cook’s core argument is that leaders are often not failing because they lack ability, but because they are operating in environments their training did not prepare them for. - She describes the difference this way: “Leadership development assumes the environment is stable. Navigation assumes it isn’t.” - A mentor’s question, “What’s your point?”, became a turning point in how Cook thinks about clarity and decision-making. - Cook says clarity is not only about communication. It is also about thinking. - Momentum Group’s coaching and advisory work focuses on leaders who are stuck, transitioning or dealing with systems that have outpaced their existing frameworks. - The work aims to identify what is blocking progress, clarify priorities and help leaders move with confidence. - Momentum Navigate helps professionals identify environments where they are most likely to thrive. - Momentum Navigate focuses on working conditions and fit, not just job titles or keyword matching. - Momentum Signal helps founders identify and pursue the right growth opportunities. - Momentum Signal is designed to reduce low-value business development effort and concentrate attention on the most promising people, companies and conversations. - Momentum Intelligence helps organizations assess readiness for AI across culture, process and technology. - Momentum Intelligence starts with an internal assessment of where an organization stands and what should come next. - The platform set reflects a belief that technology should strengthen human judgment rather than replace it. - Cook says, “The goal isn’t to remove people from decisions. It’s to help them make better ones.” - Cook’s website is momentum-grp.com and her Influential Women profile is available here . Between the lines: - Cook is positioning navigation as a response to a deeper workplace shift: leaders are making decisions with incomplete information and less stable assumptions. - The AI products suggest Momentum Group is moving from advisory services into scaled software tools. - The emphasis on clarity, fit and readiness points to a broader trend in leadership and talent strategy: less emphasis on fixed frameworks, more on adapting to changing conditions. What’s next: - Momentum Group is developing its portfolio of AI-enabled platforms. - The company appears aimed at expanding its navigation framework beyond one-on-one coaching into tools that can serve more users at once. - Cook’s next step is likely to keep linking leadership guidance with AI-assisted decision support for individuals and organizations. The bottom line: - Momentum Group is betting that the next era of leadership will depend less on managing stability and more on navigating uncertainty with better judgment.