Research Lead
You don't need a full-time research lead. You need the right one, part of the time.
Hiring a full-time Research Lead is a big commitment. But running a product or service team without senior research leadership is a bigger risk.
Fractional Experience Lead gives you the strategic oversight, stakeholder alignment, and hands-on guidance your team needs without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Who this is for
This is a good fit if you're a product or service team that's growing fast and needs research to keep pace with the roadmap. If you've got researchers on staff but no senior leadership to connect their work to product and business decisions, that's a gap this engagement fills. It's also a strong fit for organizations that had a research lead leave and aren't ready to backfill the role, and for teams that want to build a research practice that actually sticks rather than starting over every time someone new joins.
How it works
I embed with your team on a part-time basis, typically one to two days per week, and act as your senior research lead for as long as the engagement runs. That means setting research direction, mentoring your researchers, connecting findings to roadmap decisions, and making sure the right people in your organization are hearing what the research is telling them. I'm not just a consultant who shows up, delivers a report, and disappears. I'm part of the team for the duration.
What you get
Over time your team makes better decisions faster, research starts influencing the roadmap instead of just informing it, and you build the kind of practice that doesn't fall apart when the engagement ends. You also get 25 years of senior experience without the overhead of a full-time salary and benefits.
A Real Example
A national automotive parts supplier hired me to lead a nine-month, multi-phase research program across a complex three-sided ecosystem. What started as a research engagement evolved into something closer to embedded strategic leadership.
I wasn't just running studies. I was aligning stakeholders across the organization, synthesizing findings across three customer groups, and making sure the research fed directly into a multi-year digital transformation program. By the end of the engagement, the client asked me to stay on and help rebuild their UX research department from the ground up.
That's what this engagement looks like at its best. Research that doesn't sit in a report. Research that changes how an organization makes decisions.
Want senior research leadership without the full-time commitment? Let's figure out what that looks like for your team.
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Most Fractional Experience Lead engagements run one to two days per week. The right cadence depends on your team's size, the pace of your roadmap, and how much research is actively happening. We'll figure out the right structure before the engagement starts.
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Most clients stay for three to six months minimum. Research leadership takes time to have real impact. Short engagements can work for specific situations but the most meaningful outcomes come from staying close to the work over time.
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Yes. A lot of Fractional Experience Lead engagements involve mentoring and directing existing researchers rather than doing all the work myself. If you've got researchers who need senior guidance, that's exactly what this is designed for.
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Fractional Experience Lead engagements are scoped based on hours, team size, and how much research is actively happening. Most clients find it's significantly less than a full-time hire while delivering the same strategic impact. Reach out and we'll talk through what the right structure looks like for your team.