Martha Carl
UX Design Leadership
I help mission-driven teams turn early ideas into scalable, customer-centered products. From zero-to-one startups to growing design organizations, I work hands-on with founders and early teams to build intentional products, processes, and teams—keeping design at the forefront of strategy.
I’m always happy to share case studies, but at a high level, here’s what I bring to the table:
I design products.
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I partner directly with founders and early-stage teams to establish UX as a strategic differentiator—not an afterthought.
Translate vision into products that make sense to users, not just internal stakeholders or investors
Define core product flows and interaction patterns that educate, reduce friction, and make value clear
Create intentional, practical design systems from the ground up—establishing clear rules that:
Enable fast iteration and build without a break down in design quality
Avoid generic, template-driven outcomes (taking shots at at you, AI)
Create coherence across experience as products grow
Bring a user-centered mindset into early decision-making, shaping product direction before costly bets are made
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I help teams move beyond their early ideas to scalable, customer-centered products.
Refine existing concepts by strategically building upon design systems with a focus on repeatability and accessibility
Embed user research throughout the product lifecycle—not as a one-time validation activity, but as an ongoing input to prioritization and solution design
Integrate AI thoughtfully into workflows to dramatically accelerate exploration and iteration through rapid prototyping, prompt-driven ideation, and early concept validation
Establish mechanisms for sharing research insights across the business, ensuring design decisions clearly ladder up to company strategy and reducing dependency on individuals / institutional knowledge
Created and implemented discovery complexity matrix, which resulted in more consistent cycle times, aiding in project planning and prioritization
A point of pride: Hometap’s Trustpilot reviews hold steady at 4.9/5 stars, and while this is certainly a shared metric (as are most metrics) many reviews mention software quality
I design teams.
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I’ve grown and led design functions from a single designer (yes, that would be me) to multidisciplinary teams. At Hometap, I took the team from 1 → 9, with the best team retention at the company and an eNPS score in the top decile.
Define and implement the UX processes that support rapid growth while maintaining the highest quality
Maintain a high-output team with a 1:2:6 (design:product:engineering) ratio
Build and nurture culture of UX maturity and customer centricity within a high-growth, ever- changing environment.
At Hometap, I created a centralized design team supporting multiple digital products, broken out into the following sub-functions: Product design, Content Design, Experience Design and UX Research. We’re anchored by:
Shared design systems
Clear (but flexible) ownership models
Regular communication and design review rituals to maintain consistency and alignment
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I focus on creating teams that are consistent but extremely adaptable, who draw energy from their own continuous improvement.
Establish shared design processes, frameworks, and tooling that are well-documented, widely understood, and actively evangelized.
Foster a mindset of continuous improvement: as the complexity of the business scales, so do our processes and capabilities
Define what “design quality” means within the organization—and ensure it is understood and measured. As we get better, we raise our own bar.
Maintain pragmatic approach to discovery, matching process to context. Not all projects require the same level of rigor, and the best way to learn is to ship.
Create information sharing frameworks that allow designers to move fluidly between product areas with minimal ramp time
Create and maintain a designer skills matrix for professional development
Work Samples
The following examples represent select snippets of work. I’m happy to speak through any of them (plus additional case studies) in more detail.
Hometap
Scaling the Design Org
Sonde Health
PPD Analysis App
The Hartford
Gamification Sprint
Lilly
Diabetes Activity Tracker App
Hometap
Investment Estimate Evolution
Voya Financial
Retirement Planner
Currently SVP of Design at Hometap, I built the design function from the ground up and scaled the product UX from MVP to a mature, industry-leading platform. I lead design vision and strategy, grow and retain a high-performing team, and partner closely with product, engineering and stakeholders to make design a core driver of business outcomes.
Over my career, I’ve worked across health tech, finance, transportation, IoT, hospitality, and government—partnering with organizations from early-stage startups to Fortune 10 companies. I’m motivated by mission-driven work and believe great products should not only move businesses forward, but create meaningful, positive impact on the humans using them. Outside of work you’ll find near the ocean with my husband, two daughters, and rescue dog, Edith.
About me
A selection of brands I’ve worked with
Alice’s Table
Alignable
Area Four
Bella Santé
Berkshire Hathaway
Eli Lilly
Follain
Hilton Hotels
Hometap
Kinross Cashmere
Liberty Mutual Insurance
Mass. Dept. of Children & Families
MBTA
MIT
Mueller Water Products
Pentair Pools
Sense
Sonde Health
The Hartford Insurance
Tyme Bank
Voya Financial
Past speaking engagements
“Empowering Customers with Digital CX”
— Digital Customer Experience Summit, November 2023
“Case Study: Sonde Health”
— Accenture Innovation Day Demonstration, January 2018
“Design for Hire: Taking the Lead”
— AIGA Boston, September 2019
“Setting the Tone with Empowering UX”
— UX2017 Copenhagen Conference, March 2017
“Star Wars and the Design Process”
— Practice Makes: Process, June 2019
“Creating a Compelling Portfolio”
— Adobe CC Creative Jam, August 2015