Barton Welt
Profile
Product design and marketing leader with 20+ years of experience building brands and digital products from the ground up. Combines UX and front-end sensibilities with marketing strategy to launch products, grow engagement, and scale creative teams, most recently leading design and go-to-market for an AI compliance management product as a founding team member.
Highlights
Led design & marketing for AI product from concept to launch
Built brand and creative function from the ground up to a team of 5 supporting a company with ~$5M ARR
Full-stack creative: brand / UX / code
Experience
VP, Design & Marketing – Winnow
Jul 2018 - Apr 2026 (Orange County, CA – Hybrid)
Led design and marketing strategy as a founding member, overseeing brand, product experience, and growth initiatives.
Drove product strategy, design, and marketing on the development of the Winnow AI product, resulting in a ~32% increase in new customers and improved customer retention of ~18%
Designed UX for internal and customer-facing applications, reducing task completion time by ~27%
Managed the relationship between design and engineering, created functional prototypes, and made hundreds of commits to the front-end production codebase
Directed branding and visual identity across all touch-points, ensuring consistency and differentiation
Led a team of 5 agency and in-house creatives, expanding creative capacity by 3-4x
Submitted to industry awards, resulting in over a dozen wins and numerous finalist designations
Grew company LinkedIn to 1,000+ passionate followers that outperformed competitors on engagement
Produced marketing and product videos and wrote SEO rich blog content, leading to a ~10% organic traffic increase
Scheduled email drip and nurture campaigns that saw an average open rate of ~28-33%
Crafted press releases around major company events, resulting in a ~10-15% boost in referral traffic
Product Design Lead – Happy Money (Payoff)
Aug 2010 - Jul 2018 (Orange County, CA – Hybrid)
Grew the creative function as a founding member, scaling design operations as the company expanded while supporting a talented team of designers.
Led branding and visual design efforts across 4 company rebrands and ~6 product launches
Drove product strategy through rapid iteration, prototyping, and leading key stakeholder meetings
Led UX design and user research on a P2P lending platform handling ~$20M in annual loan originations
Partnered on front-end development to reduce average time-on-task by ~22-35% across application
Managed social media and digital marketing initiatives resulting in 2-3x increase in online engagement
Created lead-gen email campaigns with ~17-24% increase in new applicants
Built the primary marketing website, landing pages, and ran regular multivariate optimization testing
Creative Experience Director – Almost Agency
Jan 2010 - Jan 2020 (Orange County, CA)
Co-founded a full-service creative agency for organizations seeking a cohesive and strategic approach to their marketing efforts.
Offered end-to-end creative services including brand identity, video production, website design and development, and integrated marketing campaigns, serving over a dozen small and mid-sized clients
Combined creative storytelling with technical execution to help clients establish strong visual identities, build engaging digital experiences, and communicate their value effectively across multiple channels
Education
Bachelor of Science, Web Design & Interactive Media
Art Institute of California Inland Empire, 2006 - 2010
Valedictorian, High Honors
Skills
Product Design
Marketing Strategy
Team Leadership
Brand Strategy
Front-End Development
Mobile-First Design
Social Media Strategy
Strategic Decision Making
Content Strategy
Design Systems
Tools
Figma
Adobe Creative Suite
Claude, ChatGPT, etc.
VS Code, SourceTree
Git, GitHub
Heroku
HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Bootstrap, Tailwind
Confluence, Jira, Notion
Google Analytics
SEO, AEO
MailChimp