Product Leadership Research | Discovery + Big Bets

Evaluating product discovery for big bets with “why now” data clarity

Successful companies evaluate CX barriers as ripe opportunities, connecting trending feedback with employee feasibility workshops in prioritizing big bets with executive storytelling.

Value, Delivered

Knowing where to invest is challenging. Research can be both powerful and dangerous if the analysis is not thorough: systems, business, market. I weave insights into storytelling that gives confidence in direction to invest in or avoid investing with consequences.

Research is validation over guessing. I lead investigative research where business teams connect with customer goals, establishing facts over fictional assumptions. I have supported teams with research team leadership to confidently move toward building new products and services. Conveying the voice of your customers with employee tactical success for business clarity is my value.

This includes connecting qualitative and quantitative analysis scorecards and frameworks origininating in 2012 with Accenture’s first-ever center-of-excellence research practice, prior to the Fjord acquisition.

  • Quantitative Research studies including surveys and prototype testing

  • Qualitative Research studies

  • Dendrogram Card Sorting, pathing for navigation branch success testing

  • A/B/n Testing Studies; Correlational Studies

  • Content Strategy comprehension and UX testing success methodologies

  • Brand Messaging Research, including empathy and trust relationships

  • Field Ethnographic and Longitudinal Studies

  • Analytical Marketing and CX Performance Measurement

  • Multichannel Communications Strategy Evaluations

  • Segmentation Analytics and Persona Strategy

  • Policy & Process Design Impacts

Collaborative outcomes

  • Caterpillar: Directed global process research across acquired BUs — fed a B2B quoting lift of +38% on a $6.9B pipeline.

  • Prudential: Led qual + quant research and persona strategy behind a $27MM transformation of a $1.55T-AUM business; unified 30+ sites into one architecture.

  • Vanguard: Led competitive financial + SEO research insights that drove a 26% performance lift; integrated two ADP/Wisely products into one design.

  • United Airlines: Field research + 9 airport agent workshops drove change management and measurable CX lift that unlocked agent adoption of new apps.

  • A Place for Mom: VoC persona research that defined exactly what to prioritize in a new digital self-service tied to call-center support.

  • Practiced leadership: Stood up Accenture’s first research Center-of-excellence best-practices (2012, pre-Fjord); led 73+ design-thinking workshops, 9 at airports.

KPIs in case studies

“It is wiser to find out than suppose.”

— Mark Twain

Featured Case Studies

Caterpillar logo with the word 'CATERPILLAR' in bold white letters and a stylized 'C' resembling a mountain or a gear.

Caterpillar

Salesforce Global Unification Discovery & Alignment

A detailed infographic illustrating the Caterpillar Customer Relationship Management Life Cycle Storyboard, featuring various stages in a customer interaction process with accompanying illustrations of people in office settings and text descriptions.

Featured Case Study : Business Research

When customer success required product process collaboration.

Spiral-bound notebook with a cover featuring a stylized black and white illustration of a person's face, with colorful hexagon accents and yellow and black design elements.

Challenge
Global acquired business units with fragmented operations created complex organizational sales cycles with role ownership and process discrepancies across the sales cycle.

Company
Caterpillar

Goal
Strategic Customer Success to unify a single SFMC PMLC platform from global process research.

Nuveen

0-1 system in 4 months

Featured Case Study: TIAA Product Ops

To forecast what’s ahead, you build flexible systems now

Challenge
Upon looking at a 12-month roadmap having just joined the company within a month, my one priority as Head of Design was immediately clear to no one but myself: deploy a new design system with only 2% of TIAA’s system budget, enough for only two design consultants while migrating and upskilling my design team into Figma in parellel.

Client
TIAA and Nuveen (Enterprise)

Goal
Build a 0-1 design system to deploy in only four months with a micro team and then scale to second version.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

— Albert Einstein

Secondary Case Studies

Prudential logo with a white mountain peak inside a circle on a black background.

Prudential

CX modernization with business transformation

Infographic profile of a 55-year-old individual named Dan, titled The Delegator, highlighting his traits, motivations, behaviors, needs, touchpoints, and preferences related to financial planning and retirement.

Secondary Case Study : VoC Personas

When investment behaviors required emotional relationships.

Infographic detailing the profile of Padma, a 41-year-old customer, highlighting her behaviors, motivations, needs, touchpoints, content preferences, and features valued in financial planning tools, with icons and diagrams illustrating her characteristics and preferences.

Challenge
Since people have different financial associations and knowledge levels with money, it influences how they navigate their life goals with traditional investment products. We needed to unify an experience that worked for many different investors.

Company
Prudential

Goal
Integrate 30+ marketing/vanity sites into a unified responsive site to align customer, business, and advisor experiences with persona user-driven research.

Logo of United Airlines featuring the word 'UNITED' with a globe icon to the right.

United Airlines

Airport Vision Modernization Service Design

People waiting in line at an airport terminal near a boarding gate, with flight information displayed on a large screen overhead.

Secondary Case Study: Service Design Physical + Digital

When CX design requires thinking beyond the digital.

Digital illustration of airport check-in area with biometric security gates, self-boarding kiosks, and signage for group boarding

Challenge
To meet evolving customer experiences as a brand differentiator, employee experiences much change and adapt with them. How do we create a vision of the future with a pragmatic roadmap that remove legacy hardware?

Company
United Airlines

Goal
Showcase an augmented reality experience to evaluate what is possible in future concepts of a gate experience.

Logo for a Place for Mom showing a stylized bird and the text "a Place for Mom" in gray and white

A Place For Mom

Self-serve Site Transformation Strategy

A screenshot of a printed or digital information sheet, featuring a profile picture of a woman with glasses and blonde hair in the top left corner. The document is divided into four columns with headings: Mindset, Actions, Digital, and Site Experience, each containing bullet points and subcategories related to family and digital habits.

Secondary Case Study : VoC Personas

When knowing what to build required market research.

A comparison chart titled "Core attributes across persons" showing four individuals: Sophia, Charles, Janice, and Carol. Each has categories like care type, trigger, urgency, key considerations, category awareness, device + context, trust reviews, and open to submitting personal info.

Challenge
A call center sales organization identified that younger customers preferred digital self-service while still wanting call center support in their journey.

Company
A Place for Mom

Goal
Research that defines what exactly to prioritize in a new digital self-service connected to call center support.

Tertiary Case Studies

Dow logo with black text inside a white diamond shape on a black background.

Dow Chemical

Site Brand Heuristics Transformation Strategy

Infographic showing statistics on sustainability recall retention and Coca-Cola branding, with pie charts, images of a sustainability report, product packaging, and media links. Notes include comments on target content, product wrapping, recall participation, and media engagement, emphasizing sustainability themes.

Tertiary Case Study : Competitive and Brand Research

When differentiation required competitive analysis.

A presentation slide showing a line graph comparing performance and Dow Jones Industrial Average scores over time, with key points on recommendations for dynamic content in a report.

Challenge
Dow needed to overhaul its entire site for responsive design with actionable guidance in planning. They tasked me with conducting in-depth analysis and user research on brand recognition, heuristics, and best-in-class trends.

Company
Dow Chemical

Goal
Deliver reports on competitive best-in-class brand sites, UX research testing analysis, heuristic scoring with recommendations.

Duke Energy logo with black background and white text

Duke Energy

Acquisition & Regulated Integration Transformation

A BMM diagram from Accenture showing the best merge method for non-residential projects, with sections labeled Account, How to & Backup, Energy Assessment & Solutions, and Usage Assessment, illustrating the flow and confidence levels in the process.

Tertiary Case Study : User Research

When a product integration required user research.

Slide titled 'What we learned: Non-Residential - 2nd Card Sort' showing a table with categories such as energy management, solutions, and incentives, each with percentage data related to efficiency, savings, tools, services, resources, and analysis overlay.

Challenge
Post-acquisition by Duke Energy, integrate two utility websites with three verticals of customer website, in-store point-of-sale, and customer care, with various stakeholders and municipality regulations that limited offers and services.

Company
Duke Energy

Goal
Create a site-wide integrated storefront and first-ever customer care site from user pattern search research.

75%

of customers say they lose trust in an organization after a poor in-product experience.

71%

of customers say they place less trust in an organization after a poor customer service experience.

GetFeedback by SurveyMonkey

Research I lead

 

I connect quantitative scale, severity, or volume with qualitative fidelity and reasoning behind your customer goals and pain points. This includes:

  1. Case Study Evaluations

  2. UX Usability Research and Heuristics

  3. Brand Messaging Research

  4. Correlational Studies

  5. Longitudinal Studies

  6. A/B Testing Studies

VoC/E Considerations