UX Researcher: Team of one

Three years ago, I sat in a room full of PMs, engineers, and a CEO, proud of my research deck. People nodded politely, but even after weeks, no one acted on it. I thought I had failed at research. I hadn't. I had failed at understanding business, and nobody warned me that was part of the job.
Being a solo UX researcher isn't just about running great studies. It's about earning a seat at the table, speaking the language of people who've never opened a research report, and building something from nothing while proving it's worth building at all.
This session is for researchers just starting, struggling in their first solo role, or trying to figure out what "senior" actually means in practice. We'll talk strategy, stakeholder politics, and the unglamorous work of making research matter.