Direct Express · $1B+ taxpayer savings
Across 14 years · Fortune 500 scale
Across industries and org types
Why smart teams get stuck
The strategy makes sense. The team is capable. The momentum is real.
But something isn't landing — with customers, with the market, with each other. And the harder you push, the more it feels like you're solving the wrong problem.
That gap between effort and result almost always comes down to one thing: an assumption that was never pressure-tested. Something that felt obvious, so nobody stopped to question it.
That's exactly where I work.
Three launches. Millions invested. Every usability test: a pass.
I was brought in to figure out why customers still weren't adopting a product — after its third major relaunch. In every session, participants completed every task without friction. By every standard measure, the product worked.
Then I asked the question nobody had thought to ask:
The interface was never the problem. The value proposition was the problem — and it had been the problem across all three launches. Nobody had surfaced it because nobody had asked.
That insight was sitting in users' heads the whole time. It was waiting for someone to go get it.
Qualitative Research
Talking to your users and synthesizing what they actually mean — not just what they said. Not a report that lives in a folder. The signal that makes your product exactly what you knew it could be.
Innovation Workshops
Structured sessions that get your team aligned on what problem you're actually solving — and what to do about it. Built around your specific situation, not a generic framework.
Delivering on the Promise
Mapping the gap between what you built and what your users expected to find. Your product had a promise when you conceived it. This is the work that makes sure it keeps it.
This works best when…
- Your team has the tools and the process — but it's more complicated than it should be, and somehow the whole is still less than the sum of its parts
- You're moving fast and something feels uncertain beneath the momentum
- You've launched — or relaunched — and results don't match the vision
- Your team keeps addressing the same problem and it keeps coming back
- You have a clear vision of where you need to get to, but the path between here and there isn't coming into focus
- You need outside perspective that comes with real rigor, not just fresh eyes
User satisfaction on Direct Express mobile banking research — with an estimated $1B+ in taxpayer savings over 10 years
UX studies across 14 years of research and strategy at Fortune 500 scale — enterprise, fintech, and innovation environments
Innovation sprints across industries — helping teams stop relaunching the same product and start solving the actual problem
Something isn't catching on and you're not sure why.
You don't need to have it figured out before you reach out. That's kind of the whole point.
Most of the best engagements I've had started with someone saying: "I'm not even sure how to explain what we need, but something is missing." That's enough. Let's start there.
I work primarily through referrals.
If someone sent you here, you're already in the right place.