About Katarina Bagherian
Katarina operates on a core belief: you only build a winning product if you’re solving the right customer problem. Her obsession is turning messy, human needs into product strategy and effective solutions, at scale.
She first cut her teeth in the world of San Francisco startups, where accurate customer insights weren’t a nice-to-have, but critical to keeping the lights on. That same scrappy, evidence-driven mindset was then brought to giants, including Adyen, where she built the customer research practice from the ground up and led the multi-disciplinary UX org.
One of her missions is to prove that deep customer understanding isn’t just for researchers, it’s the most powerful tool any team member can wield, a message she actively spreads through guest lectures, writing, and community mentorship.
What is your vision on the creative industry and impact on the finance industry? What are exciting innovations that impact your work?
AI and the broader economic climate have been putting newfound pressure on the UX field to redefine what we uniquely bring to the table, and how we do it. In the B2B enterprise finance industry, which tends to face the extra pressures of stringent regulations, we’ve had to get creative with the (compliant) tooling we use and how we keep the quality of customer understanding high amidst increasing demands for speed.
The most exciting innovations impacting my work, personally, are the spark and creativity that come from the human curiosity and connections around me. Increasingly I see how the most valuable and complex challenges to resolve are the uniquely human ones that require deep empathy, connection and curiosity.
