Most consultants hand you a slide deck and take off. We stay with you.
We help companies grow revenue and optimize global operations in an AI-disrupted market. We don't just hand you a strategy - we roll up our sleeves and embed with your team to rebuild sales organizations, launch new service offerings, and implement the right technology stack.
Growth Design Group is a growth strategy studio combining strategic consulting with fractional leadership. We embed with your team to design your growth strategy, then stay to execute it - whether you're scaling across markets, building new service offerings, or transforming operations for the AI era. We bring the operational experience to turn strategy into measurable results.
Our founders, Paul Barlow and Jose Palomares, have built, scaled, and sold companies on both sides of international growth: the enterprises expanding globally and the providers enabling them. They understand what enterprise teams need and what service providers can deliver. More importantly, they know how to navigate the complexity that AI can't solve - the human judgment, relationships, and operational know-how that drive real transformation.
Growth doesn't have to be left to chance. The organizations that build it reliably and sustain it when conditions change do so deliberately. They treat growth the way an architect treats a building: design it first, with intention and expertise, then build it with the right crew. A blueprint without a builder is just paper. The architecture of growth requires both.
That's the belief we founded Growth Design Group on, and it's why we're structured the way we are.
Paul Barlow and Jose Palomares started this firm because they kept arriving at the same conclusion from opposite ends of the industry. Paul spent his career on the vendor side: building revenue organizations from scratch, rebuilding ones that had stalled, and advising leadership teams on how to turn sales ambitions into repeatable results. Jose spent his on the buyer and technology side: running global programs at enterprise scale, building the platforms that power international content operations, and making the vendor selection and build-vs-buy decisions that most consultants only advise on.
The gap they both kept seeing wasn't a lack of strategy. It was the distance between the blueprint and the build.
Jose Palomares
Strategy & Systems
Jose has spent his career at the intersection of corporate strategy, product technology, and international scale. His expertise was built from the inside of organizations grappling with global complexity, not from the outside advising on it.
As Sr. Director of Global Experiences at Coupa, he managed programs delivering products and services to millions of users across 100+ markets and 50 languages, overseeing product globalization, market expansion, and AI-driven transformation at enterprise scale. As CTO of Venga Global, he built the technology platforms that powered Fortune 100 companies' international content operations, including Google, Facebook, Slack, Workday, and Uber.
Born in Barcelona, Spain, he has built technical solutions and led business transformation, managed programs at enterprise scale, and advised early-stage companies on international product-market fit. He has led cross-functional global teams across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
His expertise centers on the decisions that determine success or failure in international operations: when to build internal capabilities, when to partner, when to buy platforms, and how to evaluate the real costs and risks of each path, including when AI changes the calculus entirely.
Throughout his career, Jose has been an early adopter of AI across its many forms, from machine translation and NLP to the current generation of generative tools. He approaches innovation not as a trend to follow but as a strategic lens, and brings that hands-on track record to clients navigating their own AI transformation.
Jose serves on the Board of Directors at the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) and hosts The Global Crowd podcast, where he explores the human side of international growth leaders.
When a revenue organization needs to be built from scratch, rescued from stagnation, or scaled to the next level, Paul is the call.
He has founded, scaled, and sold multiple companies. Across his career, he has rebuilt revenue organizations at businesses of every stage, from early-stage service providers closing their first enterprise deals to established firms managing tens of millions in annual revenue, consistently delivering double-digit growth by building the systems, processes, and team alignment that turn ambition into predictable results.
As a fractional leader and strategic advisor, Paul steps into VP and C-suite roles to design go-to-market strategies, restructure sales organizations, lead M&A integrations, and build the operational infrastructure that supports sustainable growth.
He doesn't just advise. He executes. His clients get someone who has done this before, knows what breaks at scale, and will stay until it works. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he has built successful businesses across North America and Europe and brings that firsthand perspective to every client relationship.
Paul is also known in the global services industry for his direct perspective on the revenue challenges facing language service providers. He offers confidential CEO-to-CEO advisory to founders and executives who want an experienced sounding board on strategy, positioning, and the hard decisions that come with scaling a services business in a market that AI is reshaping fast.
Between us, we've been every party at the table: the enterprise, the vendor, and the technologist. Most advisors have lived one of those roles. We've lived all three.
Independence
No vendor allegiance. No hidden agenda. Just the right answer for your situation.
Full Perspective
Buyer, vendor, and technology — every seat at the table, at once.
AI Literacy
Honest on what AI can do for your operations — and what it can't, yet.
Embedded Execution
We don't hand off a plan. We stay in the room until it works.
Our independence is the foundation of how we operate. We have no financial stake in which vendor you choose, which technology you adopt, or whether you engage a language service provider at all. Those conversations are not always comfortable. They are exactly the point.
Our Services
The problems that bring organizations to us look different from client to client. An LSP with a stalled revenue organization needs different thinking than an enterprise leader figuring out what AI means for their international content strategy. Our services are built around those distinct realities, not a single methodology applied regardless of context.
Revenue Growth & Sales Transformation
For companies whose revenue engine needs to be built, fixed, or scaled — not just advised on:
Sales program review: audit of new business, existing accounts, and external contracts
Go-to-market strategy and ideal customer profile development
Company sales plan with KPIs, OKRs, and pipeline management
Deal and pipeline reviews
Enterprise sales process, CRM optimization, and sales content
Sales team boot camps and enablement programs
Recruitment advisory for GTM and sales leadership roles
CEO-to-CEO strategic advisory
Global Strategy & Technical Innovation
For enterprise leaders building global capabilities, evaluating technology, and navigating the decisions that determine whether international growth succeeds or stalls:
International product readiness and globalization strategy
Build vs. buy vs. partner evaluation for global capabilities
Vendor and technology selection for global operations
AI strategy for translation, localization, and global content at scale
Risk management for AI adoption in global operations
Change management and organizational design for global teams
Procurement navigation and vendor relationship management
Embedded Execution
Strategy without execution is just a document. We step in as fractional leaders and stay until the foundation holds:
Fractional VP, CRO, CPO, or COO roles
Cross-functional program management for complex initiatives
M&A integration and post-acquisition alignment
Interim leadership during transition or growth periods
Process design, workflow optimization, and performance systems
Structured handoff with ongoing advisory availability
Built on a foundation of
AI for Global Operations
AI is reshaping how organizations approach translation, localization, and international content — and most of the people selling AI solutions won't tell you how complex it is to get right at scale. Some organizations are going AI-first from day one. Others are asking whether they still need their vendor relationships. Both deserve an honest answer and a plan that accounts for the risks:
AI readiness assessment for global content and localization operations
Adoption guidance for organizations new to localization going AI-first
Transformation guidance for organizations moving away from traditional vendors
Risk and compliance frameworks for AI at scale
Platform evaluation and vendor selection
Workflow redesign for AI-augmented global operations
Change management for teams navigating AI adoption
Hybrid workflow design: where AI leads and where human expertise remains essential
How We Work
Not Just Strategy. Strategy + Execution.
Growth Design Group combines consulting and fractional services because international growth requires both vision and operational follow-through.
Consulting engagements help you make the right strategic decisions amid complexity: market prioritization, platform selection, organizational design, technology investment, build-vs-buy analysis. Our team brings pattern recognition from dozens of companies and honest assessment of what will actually work for your situation.
Fractional leadership means we stay and execute. We embed as part of your team - VP of International Operations, Chief Revenue Officer, Head of Global Expansion - bringing senior-level expertise without full-time overhead. You get experienced leaders who've navigated this complexity before, guiding the work until your internal team is ready to own it.
Every engagement follows the same discipline: we start with clarity — defining what success looks like and what it will actually take to get there. We don't pad timelines or manufacture dependency. Once the strategy is designed and the foundation is built, we hand it off. Your team owns it. We step back, but we don't disappear. We stay at arm's length, available when the next challenge arrives.
Who We Work With
Language Service Providers
We work with LSP leadership — CEOs, founders, and executive teams — to align on where the business needs to go and what it will take to get there. Then we embed with the teams doing the work. Whether the challenge is rebuilding a revenue organization, repositioning ahead of AI disruption, identifying the right technology partners to scale delivery, or defining new service offerings, we bring strategic clarity and operational follow-through. We know this industry from the inside — and we'll tell you the truth about what's working and what isn't.
Enterprise Teams
We work with VPs and senior leaders in Product, Marketing, Content, and Global Operations at organizations navigating the complexity of international growth. That includes companies with a globalization function that isn't performing, organizations that need to build one from scratch, and those trying to understand what AI actually means for their international content operations — without the sales pitch. We've been on your side of the table. We know the procurement challenges, the internal politics, the IT constraints, and the cost of getting this wrong. We help you cut through it.
Every project starts with an honest conversation.
Whether you're planning international expansion, rebuilding global operations, or navigating the complexity of AI transformation — let's talk.
