# Victoria Cao > Research, Insights & Strategy Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/victoriacao Strategic designer, empathic researcher, function-builder and coach with formal training in law and anthropology, 12+ years of experience in startups to high-growth companies, and consulting for traditional BigLaw firms to early non-profits. Thrives in ambiguity and making sense of complex systems to facilitate co-creating innovative reimagining of the future. I enjoy exploring how our relationship with technology can empower human-centered services, equitable structures, and innovative experiences that increase well-being on individual and societal levels. I'm a firm believer that individual flourishing is grounded in a understanding the layers of contextual for transformation. ## Work Experience ### Senior Manager, Product Research @ Credit Karma Jan 2022 – Present ### Interim Head of Product Research @ Credit Karma Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 ### Product Research Manager @ Credit Karma Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 ### Research & Insights Manager @ Plaid Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco, CA Evolved Research function across multiple product areas. Hired and built a centralized team of lead researchers with a human-centered approach to what we build and the way we work. ### Lead UX Researcher @ Plaid Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco, California, United States ### UX Research Manager @ Mapbox Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco, CA Built the UX Research team function to centrally support organizational Insight needs. Grew and managed a team of three full-time researchers while supervising contractors and vendors. Democratized UX mindset as a small team by providing training, facilitation, tools, and scripts for tactical research, while planning and maintaining strategic research roadmap in collaboration with company leadership. ### User Experience Researcher @ Mapbox Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco, CA Launched the UX discipline from the ground up as the first user experience researcher. Led full-scale research from generative to evaluative studies. Drove end-to-end process from question framing and study design, to research recruitment, to conducting studies and analysis, to collaborating on potential new directions. ### Design Strategist, Legal @ IDEO Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area Worked directly with the General Counsel and Legal Design Leads to bring strategic design and human-centered innovation to the law and government, prototyping a new practice area for the international design firm. ### Product Policy Researcher @ Facebook Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area Designed product policy approaches and aligned cross-functional teams for product strategy on new feature launches. Synthesized user feedback, content reviewer data, and design research to advise on building product policy systems. ### UX Research & Design Strategy Consultant @ Freelance Jan 2013 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco, Denver, New York Human-centered research and product strategy. Clients included: • Premise Data - user experience research with international data contributor network • Havenly - designed growth marketing strategy and personas with mixed-methods research • Jurispect - heuristic evaluation of onboarding and dashboard in legal compliance product • Trueffect - user research design and execution: cookie effectiveness and digital ad privacy ### Research Associate, Center for Internet & Society @ Stanford Law School Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | Stanford, CA Conducted research on how advances in technology affect human expectations of privacy and trust, and on the ways in which the law can be proactive and reactive to these changes. ## Education ### J.D. in Law Georgetown Law Jan 2010 – Jan 2013 ### B.A. in Anthropology, Geography, English minor Dartmouth College Jan 2006 – Jan 2010 ### Exchange in London in International Law, Behavioural Economics King's College London Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 ### Exchange in Prague in Geography, Anthropology Charles University Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/victoriacao --- Source: https://flows.cv/victoriacao JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/victoriacao/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-25