Megan Blocker
Director of User Research, DigitalOcean
Megan founded McKinsey’s design research & insights practice, establishing and growing a team of one to more than 50 researchers, data analysts, and data scientists globally. As part of that transformation, she built the design research talent architecture and established McKinsey’s design research philosophy, operations, and tooling. In addition, Megan is deeply passionate about equity and inclusion. She co-founded McKinsey’s Women in Tech initiative and was a member of the DE&I global leadership team.
In her work as a researcher, Megan combines empathy with data to achieve deep understanding, craft inspirational vision, and deliver actionable insight. As a leader, she makes sense of ambiguity and thrives when building and leading teams where trust, transparency, and clarity of vision encourage risk-taking, innovation, and creativity. Most of all, she loves building something new and scrappy, then strategically operationalizing it for scale. She invests in people, Post-Its, insights, and LEGOs.
Rosenverse talks by Megan:
" Insight is that aha moment, a new understanding that helps us make decisions that move us forward. "
Positioning insight: Structuring teams, roles and careers for a changing research landscape
March 13, 2025
" Participants want to take ownership of their stories and demand participatory, non-extractive, trauma-informed research methods. "
Redefining the research toolkit: Expanding methodologies for a changing world
March 12, 2025
" Knowledge just isn’t created in isolation anymore. "
Theme 2 Intro
March 12, 2025
" Right sizing research respects communities by matching the scope to what participants can reasonably engage with. "
Day 2 Theme Panel
March 12, 2025
" If you don’t have researchers to shadow, lean on communities, data scientists, or industry organizations. "
Methodologies: Beyond the interview [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
September 4, 2024
" Bringing in expert interviews and secondary data gives you an outsider’s perspective to challenge the status quo. "
Getting to the “So What?”: How Management Consulting Practices Can Transform Your Approach to Research
March 26, 2024
" You can be an amazing researcher and have zero impact, or a bad researcher and have amazing impact. "
Panel: Excellence in Impact
March 25, 2024
" The longer I’m in UX, the less I think I know—there’s always more to learn and ways to develop. "
What UX research maturity looks like and how we get there [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
November 9, 2023
" Offers of championship from leaders, like 'What do you need from me?' are strong signs of buy-in. "
A Selectively Scrappy Approach to ResearchOps
November 8, 2018
