J WEN DESIGN

Design for togetherness:
building bridges between design & strategy.

With 15 years shaping the intersection of design, brand, and business strategy, Jess Wen has spent the past decade working closely with founders and VCs. She helps high-growth, venture-backed companies solve real problems, build enduring brands, and outperform competitors.

Formerly serving as Managing Director at West, Jess led multidisciplinary teams to untangle complex organizational challenges, translating startups’ long-term vision and immediate milestones into clear, scalable strategies that drive sustained business growth.

15 years of design experience, 10 dedicated in startups •

100+ startup clients •

$2.1B raised from featured clients •

15 years of design experience, 10 dedicated in startups • 100+ startup clients • $2.1B raised from featured clients •

→ CV

SUPERPOWERS

  • The world is complex, the market unpredictable, and stakeholders (always) have competing needs. Jess helps founders and investors bring clarity to every conversation by scoping, framing, and reframing opportunities.

  • With the uncommon path of a graphic designer turned strategist turned startup growth leader, Jess uses visuals to reset understanding and align executives, whether over Zoom or in the room.

  • Startups necessitate doing a lot with very little; every dollar and every minute counts. As the fifth hire at a startup that successfully exited, and with eight years of experience working with hundreds of founders and execs, Jess knows the value of dreaming big while staying disciplined, investor-minded, and ruthlessly practical.

  • Entrepreneurship is a wild ride (but you already know that).

    As a woman of color in this space, Jess has seen firsthand how real relationships and strong communities bring meaning and momentum to the journey.

    And hey, don’t just take her word for it. Reach out!

FEATURED PROJECTS

Inception /
Prelude Network 

Healthcare • Venture/PE • Total Raised: $200M

  • Prelude began with an urgent mission: to transform fertility care into something more human. Founder Martin Varsavsky sought to create a national network built on compassion, clinical excellence, and a modern patient experience.

  • Our challenge was to create a brand system that could unify disparate clinics while respecting regional nuance. We built a flexible architecture, messaging, and identity system that scaled across sub-brands and clinic types. As patient needs and cultural norms evolved, we also helped Prelude adapt its positioning to stay ahead of a rapidly shifting category.

  • Today, Prelude is the largest fertility network in North America, with 90 clinic locations and 8 brands across services. It continues to lead the conversation around family-building—with care, clarity, and scale.

  • I was seeking a creative and strategic partner that was not afraid to be bold and push the boundaries of how we spoke about fertility. West was there from day one with a sense of urgency that drove our brand and this industry forward.

    - Martin Varsavsky, Founder of Prelude Fertility

SQUIRE 

Operations • Series D • Valuation: $750M

  • SQUIRE was born out of lived experience. Founders Songe LaRon and Dave Salvant saw firsthand the cultural and operational importance of the barbershop—and set out to modernize it without losing its soul.

  • As SQUIRE scaled, they needed a brand that could grow with them. We helped expand their visual and verbal identity, built a messaging framework for both marketing and product, and ensured consistency across every channel. The work was rooted in one principle: design for the community, not just the category.

  • Today, SQUIRE supports over 35,000 barbers and businesses and processes more than $1B in transactions. As one of the most promising Black-owned tech companies, it’s reshaping what it means to run—and own—a barbershop.

  • Jess consistently brought sharp insight, clear communication, and a strong commitment to both the immediate and long-term goals of each project. She has a genuine curiosity and drive that pushes projects beyond expectations, always aiming to deliver work that adds real value and impact.

    - Curvel Baptiste, Creative Director at Squire

SoLo Funds

Finance • Series B • Valuation: $150M

  • SoLo Funds was built around a core belief: financial support should be accessible, community-driven, and stigma-free. In a system where most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, founders Travis Holoway and Rodney Williams saw an opportunity to rewrite the rules.

  • We worked with SoLo to clarify its brand and category position, build a long-term vision, develop a refreshed identity and messaging system, and overall creative direction for website and key brand assets. The team activated that work through a community-led campaign that brought their mission to life—real users, real stories.

  • Today, SoLo serves over 2 million members and facilitates a loan every minute. With partnerships across media and impact sectors, it’s pushing peer-to-peer lending into a new era of dignity, transparency, and inclusion.

  • West/Jess has been an invaluable partner and investor in the growth of SoLo Funds. With the foundational brand strategy work, West helped SoLo articulate our unique position in the market, and shift our posture from defense to offense to capture the bigger opportunity ahead of us. West offered honest and impactful recommendations on how to get to our next big milestone.

    - Travis Holoway, Co-Founder and CEO, SoLo Funds

Topia

Legal • Series D • Valuation: $11B

  • Topia began with a clear insight: in a global economy, talent needs to move just as freely as information. Originally founded as MoveGuides, the company focused on relocation, but quickly saw the opportunity to address the full scope of distributed workforce management.

  • With a $48M Series C, the leadership engaged us to help reposition the company for broader strategic relevance. We renamed the company Topia, reframed its narrative, and developed a unified brand architecture and identity system that reflected both ambition and adaptability. The work supported two acquisitions and positioned the business to lead a fast-changing category.

  • Today, Topia serves some of the world’s largest enterprises and has raised over $160M. With a valuation over $11billion, it continues to redefine how companies manage global mobility—strategically and at scale.

  • West/Jess was an amazing partner in shaping our emerging global mobility management category and defining a new identity for the company. Their quick grasp of the domain, collaborative and iterative approach, and uniquely creative thinking resulted in a great work product. I consider the West team an invaluable part of our company and our future.

    - Brynne Kennedy, Founder & CEO, Topia

Services

Understanding

Market & Cultural Analysis

Audience Segmentation

User Journeys 

Ecosystem Mapping 

Qual & Quant Research

Design

Experience Design

System Design

Brand Identity

Business Model Design 

Workshop Facilitation

Execution

Product Strategy 

Creative Direction 

GTM & Growth Strategy 

Pitch Deck Narrative 

Stakeholder Alignment

Misc.

Cultural Sensitivity  

Genuine Curiosity 

Photography

Third Cultural Kid

Dog Belly Rubbing

Outside of work-work

Jess organizes community gatherings—from large-scale events like TEDxSanFrancisco and Social Capital Market (SOCAP), to intimate, family-style dinners at home. As an introvert, she gains energy from deep one-on-one conversations (with a few goofy jokes in between), whether the room holds two people or a thousand.

Additionally, she teaches Creative Entrepreneurship at California College of the Arts (CCA), where she shares her belief that "designers have so much more to offer beyond the pixels." She also sits on the board of the Ratcliffe Center for Creative Entrepreneurship at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA RCCE).