Zack Stewart

• Founded and lead product strategy for an AI-powered consumer app, conducting 12+ user interviews and gathering insights from 30+ on-the-ground participants to validate product-market fit and identify whitespace across international markets.
• Integrated 15+ AI tools into the development workflow, leveraging multi-model orchestration for research synthesis, content generation, and localization across 12+ languages to accelerate iteration while maintaining research rigor.
• Designed agentic research pipelines combining AI-assisted synthesis with HITL validation, enabling rapid concept testing that balanced consumer desirability with technical feasibility.
• Developed product strategy using AI-enabled competitive analysis and social listening, translating findings into visual frameworks and opportunity maps that guided prioritization across a lean cross-functional team.

• Led a four-month longitudinal study with active drivers for a global mobility platform, analyzing 471 mixed-method survey responses to prioritize navigation, safety, and retention needs.
• Led mixed-methods research across 3 FinTech product lines with 75 participants, identifying abandonment drivers and delivering strategic recommendations across alignment, insight, and opportunity phases; client subsequently achieved #1 in JD Power 2026, 25% rise in digital mortgage applications, and ~80% of business accounts online.
• Led strategy engagement with 15 international experts across an AI fertility platform, conducting expert interviews that reduced sales friction by 60% and advised a roadmap pivot from reactive to predictive AI, balancing desirability with technical feasibility, presenting to client leadership.
• Developed a 5-tier hierarchy-of-needs visual framework from interviews with 13 HR leaders for a B2B SaaS client, translating insights into a strategic narrative that guided Tier 3 predictive AI product strategy across cross-functional product and engineering teams.
• Designed and executed a 151-participant mixed-methods study (usability + surveys + NPS) for a global restaurant platform, synthesizing findings into an opportunity map that informed a platform-wide redesign; client subsequently achieved 97% load time reduction and 210M active users.
• Evaluated an AI chatbot with 24 survey responses for a financial services client, identifying NLP failure patterns and delivering recommendations balancing desirability against technical constraints; client subsequently launched a Dining Companion beta and integrated Anthropic's Claude.

• Led IA research combining tree testing (17 users) and open card sorting (30 users) for a major US bank, quantifying a 73% task-failure rate and developing a restructured navigation framework presented to C-suite stakeholders; client subsequently achieved an 8-second reduction in average handle time.
• Conducted iterative concept validation with 18 credit union members for a fintech rewards platform, measuring Ease of Experience (89%→100%), Likelihood to Use (50%→70%), and Value of Experience (44%→80%) across Figma prototype rounds, delivering desirability and viability recommendations to product leadership.
• Facilitated Figma prototype testing with 8 healthcare professionals for a diabetes management app, evaluating clinical workflow integration and presenting to client executives; product subsequently achieved CE Mark certification and reached 7M+ mySugr accounts.
• Conducted walk-the-store usability research with 8 participants across a healthcare network's digital properties, delivering a strategic opportunity map to executives; client subsequently redesigned 575 location pages generating 1M+ visits/month and won an eHealthcare Gold Award.
• Designed a 7-day diary study with 8 participants for an IoT wellness platform, synthesizing behavioral patterns into a proposed diagnostic tool concept; client's Origin AI division was subsequently acquired by ADT for $170M.

• Built company-wide Research Operations infrastructure from the ground up, recruitment pipelines, standardized templates, and a cross-functional research repository that scaled research capacity across EPD teams and democratized testing for product managers and designers.
• Led HITL validation of an AI-powered home search feature with 13 participants, achieving a SUS score of 87.5 (A-) and using dendrogram clustering to identify 4 distinct UI interaction patterns; 80% of users scrutinized 3+ listings before signup, informing design refinements presented to leadership.
• Conducted FinTech product validation revealing 87% positive sentiment and 64% high interest, while surfacing that 50% feared hidden fees, delivering desirability and viability insights that shaped pricing transparency strategy and go-to-market approach.
• Designed a diary study examining onboarding, uncovering 'Personal' touch rated 4.1/10; partnered with Lifecycle Marketing to revamp communication cadence, translating insights into a cross-functional action plan presented to leadership.
• Acted as strategic advisor to product and engineering leadership, translating research into opportunity maps and strategic narratives that influenced roadmap priorities across the home-buying journey.

Led user research for community-driven initiatives and non-profit volunteer logistics.