Cate Riegner
ResearcherStrategistAI Pioneer25+ Years in Tech
I help companies understand their customers — and use that understanding to build better products, sharper strategy, and lasting competitive advantage.
I'm a market research strategist with over 25 years of experience working with the world's leading technology companies — Google, Airbnb, eBay, Meta — on the questions that matter most: who are your customers, what do they need, and how do you reach them in a way that actually resonates?
My work spans the full range of research disciplines — segmentation, brand tracking, UX, concept testing, pricing, competitive analysis — executed at global scale across more than 30 countries and 40 languages. I've always been drawn to the complex, the ambiguous, and the high-stakes.
Today, I'm at the forefront of a fundamental shift in how research gets done. As AI Strategy Lead at NAXION, I'm pioneering AI-assisted interviewing methodologies and leading the evaluation of synthetic respondent platforms — exploring where AI genuinely augments human insight and where it falls short. I bring a practitioner's rigor to a space that is moving fast and deserves careful thinking.
I founded NetPop Research in 1997 and built it into a trusted strategic research partner for Silicon Valley's most demanding clients. I hold an M.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Smith College.