20+ projects covering mixed-methods research, market research, product strategy, and UX optimization. Includes: B2B SaaS platforms, Fintech tools, AI platforms, etc.

Square

• Developed and executed mixed-methods study revealing how businesses use handheld POS systems to manage orders

• Determined key usability and feature gaps limiting Square’s performance

• Delivered prioritized recommendations for improvement

• Began setup and delivered final report within 3 weeks to meet tight stakeholder deadline

• Impact: Executives stopped further feature releases to address issues my report raised

National Safety Council

• Designed and led research to determine new audience personas for workplace safety organization

• Discovered and defined new Ideal Customer Profile: “HR Rick,” an emerging HR decision-maker persona

• Pinpointed new growth opportunities across business units, particularly for First Aid vertical

• Led 3-person team doing surveys, interviews, customer journeys, and conjoint analysis

• "Gretchen knows our business better than people who have been here for years" - Director of Innovation

• Impact: Client has large-scale new persona to target, with the specifics of where, how, when to reach them. Client also has new first aid training use cases and product bundles that could 2X or 3X revenue for that vertical

Stripe

• Conducted qualitative and quantitative benchmarking study for Link, Stripe’s digital wallet

• Compared Link’s performance against six major competitors (US and EU), pinpointing key strengths, vulnerabilities, and defining baseline metrics across critical product dimensions

• Defined improved digital wallet purchase flows across multiple device and wallet combinations

• Impact: Client has clear options for improving existing wallet workflows, a current baseline across competitors and regions, and a framework to efficiently revisit benchmarking on a yearly basis.

Research consulting for range of businesses, including B2C FinTech, EdTech, and B2B SaaS Platforms

Sagewell Financial

• Designed research to guide development of a retirement spend-down platform, uncovering user motivations and financial behaviors that informed pricing, product design, and engagement strategy.

• Uncovered pricing elasticity that enabled a 2X price increase with less than 5% drop in conversions

• Created customer journeys for "Interest Rate Dads" and "Divorcee" personas

• Co-created prototype of complete account management flow

• Impact: Increased revenue 100% for main product/service. Reduced time to value and cost of acquisition.

Voltaiq

• Usability & Product Consultant identifying key improvements for battery testing and analytics platform

• Ran heuristic evaluation of platform

• Used qualitative interviews to uncover current friction points for existing users and identify most needed features for prospective clients

• Determined key functionality needs for dashboard for current and future users

• Provided prioritized list of usability issues to address. Identified critical bugs, including one that was known to the client but that they had vastly underestimated the impact it had and inefficiency it caused.

• Impact: Lean Product and Engineering teams could prioritize features and fixes for current customers and prepare platform for meeting the needs of new target personas.

Collaborative Classroom

• Research Advisor to AI-driven educational platform

• Worked with Product & Design to determine what was already known, and what research was most needed for upcoming release

• Impact: Client team felt empowered to prep and run the research and do the analysis. Client had template for executing similar research in the future.

OUTCOMES & IMPACT:

• 5X free trial signups

• 30% increase in mid-funnel sales conversions

• 40% increase in monthly active users

• Helped Sigma secure $300MM Series C funding

• Increased research capacity almost 50% by training Product, Design, and Customer Success teams on research they wanted to do

• Decreased research prep and set up time by 30% by automating and operationalizing research prep and follow-through

HOW:

• Identified emerging customer segments and developed data-driven engagement strategies that expanded the customer base.

• Designed, built, and tested a product-led growth journey tailored for marketing-segment prospects, resulting in:

• - 500% increase in new trial signups for target persona

• - 40% increase in onboarding completion and MAU (monthly active users)

• - 30% increase in Middle of Funnel (MOFU) conversion rates, a key success metric for the project

• Developed an ideal customer profile framework that defined three priority segments and use cases, and built a scalable research strategy and roadmap using repeatable methods to evaluate future markets and opportunities.

• Established a scalable research operation by recruiting and managing a 450-participant user panel, streamlining research logistics through automation, and training PMs and designers on doing evaluative research

• Through fast, iterative design & testing we upgraded major components including Workbooks, Visualizations, Lookups, etc.

First design and research hire. Spearheaded transformation of Pac-12’s digital platforms into dynamic fan hubs that amplified viewership, deepened engagement, and attracted new partnership opportunities.

OUTCOMES & IMPACT:

• Engagement metrics (Site traffic, app alert signups, app downloads, time spent on app/site) all up 25-30%

• Drove 10X traffic to partner tv provider signups

• Increased digital football ticket sales across Pac-12 schools by 15%

• Reduced time the content team needed to spend on social posts by 60%

HOW:

• Originally the website and apps were static properties. Through data analysis determined that the kinds of content fans wanted were around teams (e.g. USC football), events (a specific USC football game) and short-form video (e.g. game highlights).

• Refactored the Pac-12 schedule page into discrete schedules for teams (and other slices). Designed Event templates to capture and serve fans who are searching for info the day of the game.

• Attached downloading the app and setting alerts from events pages, which became the entry point for most people into Pac-12.

• Collaborated with Business Development and Partnership team to design “How to Watch” flows on event pages, driving 10X increase in traffic to TV provider partners, improving the viewer acquisition funnel

• Created automated same-day ticket promotion module that would show to people landing on the school's tickets page the day of a home game, when the user was within proximity to the event. Collaborated with school athletic departments and their hosting partners to launch

• Worked with content teams to create suite of visual templates to use across social media (60% time reduction)

• Ran weekly research insights meetings that the President of the company called his most useful meeting of the week

Led UX Design on numerous Razorfish projects, including ones for PG&E, Intel, Avaya, and Wells Fargo.

• Turned PG&E home rebates list into interactive 3D house that showed users how much they could save. Success of that project led to two more projects.

• Led large-scale website redesign for Intel

• Contributed to the most comprehensive website redesign Wells Fargo had done to date

• Collaborated on Nike women's sports marketing project