01
Build the team.
Develop researchers, create clarity around the work, and build an environment where good judgment and rigorous thinking can grow.
Zachary Rethorn
Research & Insights Leader
The point of research is to improve the decision.
I build and lead teams and capabilities that turn human insight into better product, strategy, and investment decisions at scale.
What I build
I build the teams, practices, and systems that make research useful.
The work is bigger than producing a study. It is about creating the conditions for good research to shape how an organization understands people, makes decisions, and acts.
02
Build the capability.
Create the methods, tools, operating rhythms, and partnerships that make insight useful beyond a single researcher or study.
03
Improve the decision.
Put evidence against the choices that matter: what to build, what to change, where to invest, and when to stop.
Selected work
Notice what matters. Then build accordingly.
01
Building a capability people actually use.
Behavioral science becomes much less useful when teams need an expert in the room every time they make a decision. I developed lightweight tools that help teams define the behavioral problem, surface their assumptions, identify what evidence matters, and choose the smallest useful next action.
Behavioral strategy
Product enablement
Organizational change
Problem Define behavior
Assumptions Surface beliefs
Evidence Test uncertainty
Next action Smallest useful step
Grassroots demand turned a lightweight behavioral science tool into a practice adopted across a 400-person product organization.
02
Looking beyond adoption.
A digital clinical workflow appeared to be growing quickly. Closer analysis revealed that averages were hiding a more important story: who was actually using it, whether they returned, and where sustained behavior was breaking down.
Behavioral analytics
Implementation science
Product strategy
User segments Adoption concentration
Initiation First-use patterns
Maintenance Return + sustained use
Drove a 174% increase in adoption and sustained use by shifting the work from aggregate uptake to segment-level initiation and maintenance.
03
Changing the decision before the spend.
Treatment decisions are rarely just information problems. Research showed that the proposed solution was addressing the wrong part of the decision. By understanding what actually shaped the choice, the work changed the strategy before more investment was committed.
Behavioral research
Patient decision-making
Portfolio strategy
Information Available options
Value Personal priorities
Choice Treatment decision
Avoided $4M in planned product investment by showing that more education would not solve the underlying decision problem.
Notes
Things I’m thinking through.
Working ideas about behavior, research, product, healthcare, and building things for human beings.
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About
My work keeps returning to the same question.
I’m Zachary Rethorn, a behavioral scientist and researcher by training, a physical therapist by background, and a product strategist by practice.
My work has moved through clinical care, academia, implementation science, technology, healthcare, and product development. Across those settings, I keep returning to the same question: how do we understand people well enough to build conditions in which they can flourish?
Behavior is never simply a matter of knowing the right thing. It is shaped by what people notice, what they care about, what their environment makes possible, and whether there is a path they can actually walk.
Elsewhere
The same questions show up in other parts of my life and work.
Writing
ReEnchanting Us
Learning to notice, love, and tend to what matters through attention, affection, place, culture, and everyday life.
Visit ReEnchanting Us →Photography
ReEnchanting Vision
A photographic practice of reverent attention to light, shadow, people, and place.
Visit ReEnchanting Vision →Clinical practice
Rethorn PT
A physical therapy practice focused on helping people with persistent pain recover agency, movement, and participation in the lives they want to live.
Visit Rethorn PT →Hospitality
Late Light
Guided wine nights built around good bottles, shared attention, conversation, and the pleasure of discovering something together.
Visit Late Light →Contact