About Ideal State

A winning partnership. Ten years running.

Ideal State has been doing human-centered digital transformation since 2016. Founded by Sara Teitelman and Jeremy Nurse at their kitchen table in Washington, DC. Senior-led, hands-on, and small on purpose. The methodology that runs underneath every engagement is also in print, in Sara’s book Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation (Wiley, 2025).

Book a discovery call Read Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation

The founders

Two founders. One vision.

Different backgrounds. Same dedication to human-centered approaches. Proven by more than two decades each of transformational leadership.

Sara Teitelman

Co-Founder and CEO

For two decades, Sara has worked at the intersection of technology, knowledge management, and the people who make it all work. Before founding Ideal State, she was a director of knowledge management leading large-scale digital transformation programs. Earlier in her career, she designed and ran public health programs in the developing world, doing the qualitative research and design thinking that taught her how to listen to people first and let them define the problem and co-design the solution.

Sara is the author of Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation (Wiley, 2025), the long-form articulation of the methodology Ideal State applies in every engagement. She leads the firm and brings the human-centered lens that defines our practice.

Sara on LinkedIn

Jeremy Nurse

Co-Founder

Jeremy started his career in technology at Forrester Research in the 1990s and has been an IT strategy consultant since. Before founding Ideal State with Sara, he led technology programs at Ford Motor Company, Nationwide Insurance, Children’s Medical Center, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where the annual technology budget runs to $4.3 billion.

Jeremy brings the operational discipline that makes Ideal State’s human-centered methodology actually land. He thinks in implementation sequences. He runs the technology layer that the human side relies on.

Jeremy on LinkedIn

The practice

The methods AI requires. Our founders have been perfecting for two decades.

Knowledge management. Change management. The two methods AI requires. Sara is an experienced knowledge management leader and speaker at events like APQC KM and KMWorld. Jeremy is a respected voice in the IT community on user-centered design and change management. Together they bring a combined 40 years’ experience in these practices. Practices that are baked in to every engagement.

Most consulting firms treat knowledge management as a SharePoint intranet and change management as a staff training. We think they might be missing the point. AI without a mature knowledge management practice is hallucination at scale. AI without a mature change management practice is unrealized potential and disillusioned staff. We have always been different. Now more than ever, that is our strength.

The playbook

Our DNA is in print.

Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation

Sara Teitelman · Wiley, 2025

Sara’s book opens with an invitation to practice the beginner’s mind when it comes to digital transformation. Written on the cusp of the AI revolution, these words are even more relevant nearly two years on.

AI is changing everything we thought we knew about technology and the world of work. It is also reframing the relationship between humans and technology. To be a successful leader in this era requires that we pursue innovation with an open mind and an open heart. Processes must be reimagined not migrated. Solutions are something to be designed by the people who will use them, not merely rolled out. And leaders have an opportunity to guide their teams with compassion, vision, and purpose through a time of great change.

Get the playbook for the new era. Available wherever books are sold.

The tech changes. People muddle through. Time to break the cycle.

Most digital transformation work fails the same way. A new system is launched. Trainings happen. An all-staff announcement goes out. Six months later the staff is quietly anxious, the leaders are quietly disappointed, and the consultants are quietly gone.

Sara and Jeremy founded Ideal State at their kitchen table in 2016 because someone had to do this work differently. Not faster. Not cheaper. Differently. We were doing it before the AI conversation showed up, and we will still be doing it after the next category-defining technology shift lands.

We are not the lesser-known, cheaper version of the big firms. We are a fundamentally different type of partner. Senior-led on purpose. People-first on purpose. Small on purpose.

The team

Senior-led, all the way.

Senior-led is what every consulting firm claims, and what most do not deliver. At Ideal State, the people in the room on day 90 of an engagement are the same people who were in the room on day one. We do not recruit recent graduates. We do not augment with offshore. We do not run pyramid economics where a senior partner sells the work and a delivery team with less than five years’ experience executes it.

Beyond the founders, the team includes program managers, M365 architects, change practitioners, and senior consultants who have each led similar engagements at other firms before joining ours.

Laura Schuck

Senior Service Delivery Manager

A certified project management professional with prior service at international NGOs including Pact and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Laura is the operational center of every engagement. She is the person who keeps the work on track when the going gets tough.

Laura on LinkedIn

Jen La Plante

Senior M365 Solutions Engineer

Jen is the senior Microsoft 365 solutions expert behind Ideal State’s Microsoft 365 work. Her specialty is M365 governance, data security, and the configuration that turns a Microsoft tenant into a foundation people can actually rely on. She builds and runs the AI solutions and underlying foundation that supports the firm’s human-centered methodology.

Jen on LinkedIn

Recognized partner

Ideal State is a Microsoft AI Cloud Solutions Partner and certified Women-Owned Small Business. We are also a Microsoft CSP license reseller, which means we can support all of your Microsoft licensing needs. Purchasing your licenses through us qualifies you for additional discounts and incentives, and a complimentary annual license review.

Microsoft Solutions Partner, Modern Work

Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) certified badge

Connect with us

Let’s see how we can help.

A 30-minute call with one of our co-founders. No consultant-speak. No pressure. Let’s explore some possibilities together.

Book a discovery call Read Zen and the Art of Digital Transformation