Senior judgement. Based on experience.
Meet Jake
Jake Kennedy is the founder and principal of Kennedy Governance Strategies. He advises Indigenous governments, foundations, and partner organizations on the files where governance, negotiation, and intergovernmental relationships meet.
Before founding KGS, Jake spent nearly two decades inside the Government of Canada, most recently as a Director General at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. In that capacity, he worked on federal policy, Nation-to-Nation relationships, and the practical realities of treaty implementation. Jake helped federal institutions, Indigenous governments, and provincial and territorial partners move complex files forward.
His federal experience spans modern treaty implementation, self-government, fiscal relations, Arctic and Northern policy, and the institutional machinery through which Crown-Indigenous relationships are actually managed. That background now anchors his advisory practice: clients retain KGS because they need senior judgment grounded in how these systems work from the inside.
Jake now works Nation-side, partner-side, and foundation-side, supporting a small number of clients at a time. The practice is deliberately lean and founder-led, built for depth, continuity, and the quality of judgment that complex governance files require.
What Sets Us Apart
Modern Treaty
Effective date readiness, treaty amendments, obligation tracking and the long arc of implementation work.
Self- Government
Institutional architecture, policy frameworks, and the decision-making structures that translate rights into governance.
Intergovernmental Relations
How federal and provincial systems operate, and how Nations and organizations engage them effectively.
Arctic &
Northern Policy
Governance, cooperation and the Indigenous dimensions of an increasingly contested and contentious policy space.
Selected Experience
Director General, Modern Treaty and Self-Government Policy & Partnerships, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada
Senior roles in federal policy, intergovernmental coordination and Treaty implementation
Advisory support to Modern Treaty Nations in British Columbia during the transition to Effective Date
Embedded strategic advisory with a Métis Nation on advancing self-government
Standing advisory to non-profit foundation on Treaty, Arctic and Northern policy
Research projects for National Indigenous non-profit organizations
Scoping and design support to Modern Treaty Nations establishing or re-designing intergovernmental affairs functions
Associates & Collaborators
KGS is principal-led. Where files call for additional senior capacity, Jake works with a small network of trusted associates and collaborators. Each associate or collaborator is selected for the specific engagement, with Jake remaining the primary point of contact and accountable for all deliverables. The firm also partners with specialist firms on co-delivered engagements in defence and security, major projects, and analytical collaboration.
Land Acknowledgment
Kennedy Governance Strategies is based in Wakefield, Quebec, on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation, whose presence on these lands and waters continues today.
The firm works with Indigenous governments across many territories in what is now Canada, and approaches each engagement with an awareness that governance, treaty, and Nation-to-Nation relationships are grounded first in the lands and peoples whose presence predates, and continues to shape, the Canadian state.
Let’s Work Together
Considering working with us?
The practice takes on a limited number of new engagements each year.
Reach out to discuss whether we're a fit.