Driving Engagement: Reimagining Membership at Topgolf
Amid Topgolf’s push to redefine engagement and loyalty, I was engaged to lead the delivery of a 5-month innovation initiative focused on reimagining the future of membership. In close partnership with executive leadership, I managed the research, live prototyping, and business design strategy of a new membership model designed to drive long-term customer value. Spanning three strategic phases, our work culminated in a pilot-ready solution and launch strategy to pursue a $30M opportunity, fueling Topgolf’s larger vision of reaching 50 billion golf balls by 2025.Highlights
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Managed cross-functional research and stakeholder engagement to uncover behavioral insights, define user needs, and shape strategic directives that informed future membership experience models
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Facilitated concept ideation, prioritization, and alignment workshops to develop and validate innovative membership models balancing player value and business goals
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Supported cross-functional prototype execution by facilitating the synthesis of real-world feedback to refine pilot recommendations and guide future membership experience implementation
PHASE 1: Generative Research & Co-Creation
SKILLS & SUbject Matter
Research operations • budget + resource planning
contexual research • Executive Stakeholder Management
overview
As program manager, I led a cross-functional team of 6 through the foundational phase of Topgolf’s Membership Redesign initiative: Generative Research & Co-Creation. This 8-week sprint aimed to uncover user needs, behaviors, and motivations while aligning executive stakeholders around opportunities to reimagine membership experiences and recurring revenue models.
My work included:
Coordinating and facilitating multi-day immersions and venue visits across multiple cities to inform analogous research and capture diverse user experiences
Managing the end-to-end execution of contextual and co-creative research including recruitment, scheduling, stimuli development, and observation logistics in Topgolf venues
Leading cross-team collaboration to identify behavioral insights, map end-to-end experience journeys, and define strategic design directives for future-state membership
Organizing and facilitating research debrief and insights workshops to align stakeholders and spark ideation around new membership paradigms
PHASE 2: Options for New Paradigms
SKILLS & Subject matter
workshop facilitation • visual storytelling
Design process • cross-functional team leadership
overview
Pulling from our previous work, I led the Options for New Paradigms phase by driving a focused 4-week sprint to generate, prioritize, and align on innovative membership concepts that balanced player value, business objectives, and implementation feasibility.
My work included:
Coordinating ideation sessions to develop new membership feature concepts informed by prior research insights and strategic design directives
Facilitating prioritization workshops to evaluate concepts against key business criteria such as player impact, cost, revenue neutrality, and strategic alignment
Synthesizing prioritized concepts into cohesive “membership paradigms” with clear value propositions, key features, target segments, and implementation considerations
Overseeing the creation of mid-fidelity future scenarios that visualized user journeys and experience elements across target audiences
Organizing a team shareout and alignment workshop to finalize focus areas, learning objectives, and success metrics in preparation for business prototyping
PHASE 3: Business Prototyping
SKILLS & Subject matter
Live prototyping• qualitative synthesis • project execution
scenario planning • stakeholder management
overview
Building on prior strategic and conceptual work, I managed the Business Prototyping phase of Topgolf’s membership redesign initiative by guiding a 7-week sprint focused on validating new membership models through live and digital prototyping and behavioral testing to inform pilot strategy.
My work included:
Coordinating the development of prototype materials and operational assets to simulate new membership experiences across both in-venue and digital channels
Managing recruitment, logistics, and observation of live prototype testing to evaluate user behaviors, decision-making, and value perception in real-world contexts
Assisting with the synthesis of prototype findings to refine service models and membership scenarios based on observed behaviors and qualitative feedback
Supporting the development of the final pilot recommendation shareout with executive stakeholders
This initiative not only reimagined what membership could look like at Topgolf, but also highlighted the power of research-driven design in unlocking both player and business outcomes. By combining behavioral insights with strategic prototyping and actionable implementation planning, our work delivered a compelling pilot strategy and membership model prototype projected to generate more than $30 million in incremental revenue while advancing Topgolf’s broader ambition of 50 billion golf balls played.