Less than a year ago, Collin Belt folded his own agency, Belt Creative, into Veza Agency Network and took the job of VP of Growth.
Effective July 1, 2026, he becomes Chief Marketing Officer, leading marketing across all four agencies, Veza Digital, Shadow Digital, Belt Creative, and Hedrick, along with WAIO, the network's methodology for earning visibility in AI-driven search.
Why a CMO, and why now
For most of the last decade, marketing across a network of agencies meant running each brand as its own shop with its own playbook. That works until the network starts to scale. As Veza has grown, the opportunity has shifted from running four separate marketing functions to building one engine that compounds across all of them.
That is the mandate. Belt owns brand positioning, demand generation, and marketing operations across the network, and he is accountable for turning the agencies' combined reach into a single, measurable pipeline.
The bet: AI search changes who gets found
The reason the timing matters is what is happening to search itself. Buyers increasingly start in answer engines and AI assistants, not a list of blue links. The question is no longer only "do we rank on Google," it is "does the AI cite us when someone asks."
Most agencies have no method for that. The network does, and it is called WAIO. Putting a marketing leader who has lived that shift into the CMO seat is how Veza intends to make AI-search visibility the center of how it grows, for itself and for its clients.
"Search is going through the biggest shift of my career," said Collin Belt, Chief Marketing Officer of Veza Agency Network. "Clients used to need to rank on Google. Now they need to get cited by AI, and most agencies have no method for that. We do. My job is to build one demand engine across the whole network and put WAIO at the center of it. We have the brands, the talent, and the methodology. The work now is to scale it."
“As the network grows, our leadership has to grow with it,” said Stefan Katanic, CEO of Veza Agency Network. “Collin is building systems and running marketing inside our network, and activating him as our CMO for this next phase unlocks our future growth. He sees where marketing is going in the AI era, and that is the leadership this network needs.”
What it means for clients
One marketing engine across the network means clients get the full weight of Veza's brands and the WAIO methodology behind their growth, whether they come in through web design and development, SEO, or creative. The throughline is the same: build for how people actually find companies now.
Belt makes the full case in a companion piece: Why AI search is forcing every agency to change how it works.
Explore the work
Veza Digital | Shadow Digital | Belt Creative | Hedrick | WAIO
We are also hiring across the network
Frequently asked questions
Veza Agency Network (VAN) is a network of four specialized agencies, Veza Digital, Shadow Digital, Belt Creative, and Hedrick, operating under one leadership team and one operating system. Each agency owns a single discipline: web, SEO, creative, or automation. Clients get 10+ year operators who coordinate daily, not a single generalist team stretched across every discipline.
