About Matt

I am a data nerd, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Messy data, clean data, data nobody has touched in three years, data that lives in five spreadsheets and tells a different story in each one. I love all of it. What I love more is helping people figure out what it is actually saying.

I'm the founder of SixFiftyThree Consulting, built on 15+ years of solving data and business problems for large organizations: forecasting engines, profitability models, and analytics platforms that executives actually used. You get a trained data scientist with a background in finance and accounting who stays hands on with the code, the data, and the strategy, and who can explain any of it without making your eyes glaze over.

I do not drop off a report and disappear. I am here for the whole journey, whether that is a one time analysis or a long term partnership.

Matt Carlson, founder of SixFiftyThree Consulting
15+
Years in data and analytics
10+
Enterprise data products shipped
MS
Data Science, Northwestern
BBA
Accounting & Finance, Loyola

The background

Built at enterprise scale, focused on businesses like yours.

My career has lived at the intersection of finance, data science, and business strategy across healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain, and pharmaceutical organizations. I have built enterprise data governance programs from scratch, rescued stalled BI initiatives, stood up forecasting systems that cut planning time in half, and built profitability engines that showed leaders exactly where they were making and losing money.

I grew up in Lake County, Illinois, around family who ran small businesses. That is a big part of why I started SixFiftyThree Consulting. The same problems that large companies throw teams and budgets at are usually the same ones holding a smaller business back, just without the team and budget. That is where I come in.

What I bring

  • A data scientist who stays hands on with the code and the data, not just the strategy
  • A finance and accounting foundation, so the work always ties back to dollars
  • Executive presence to lead the conversation and the discipline to deliver
  • Plain English over jargon, every time
  • Senior level expertise without the full time executive cost

Industries

Healthcare Manufacturing Supply chain Pharmaceutical Distribution Finance

The name

Why "SixFiftyThree"

653 is a number that has followed me through some of life's most pivotal moments and transitions. Data goes through something similar. It gets collected, transformed, and given a purpose. That is the idea behind SixFiftyThree Consulting. I do not just organize numbers, I look for the pattern inside them, the same way you start to notice a number that keeps showing up at the right moments in your own life. Finding that pattern is what turns data into direction.

How I work

Embedded, accountable, and easy to work with.

Deep dive

I find the real problem

Before building anything, I get to know your business so we solve the cause, not the symptom.

Build the plan

I focus where it counts

A targeted plan aimed at the few high impact areas that will move the business forward.

Deliver

I stay to the finish

A solution built to work and scale, with a partner who stays accountable to the outcome.

Let's talk

If your data is not working as hard as you are, let's fix that.

Book a short, no pressure call and tell me what you're up against.