Suggestions
Amy Downs
Founder, CEO Customer Obsessing Consulting (Former Twilio)/CCO
Professional Background
Amy Downs is an accomplished and dynamic professional with over 20 years of extensive experience in the enterprise software industry. As an authentic and empathetic leader, she has a remarkable ability to inspire teams and mobilize organizations to achieve outstanding business results. Known for her expertise in transforming company cultures to focus on customer obsession, Amy has played a pivotal role in driving world-class growth and retention across various organizations. Her career trajectory has seen her excel in positions that allow her to harness the full potential of organizations and their employees, leading them towards success with innovative and transformative strategies.
Throughout her career, Amy has demonstrated her exceptional leadership skills by managing significant annual recurring revenue (ARR) streams and scaling numerous PaaS and SaaS companies from the ground up. Her dedication to customer success, along with her proven methodologies in developing strategic account management and customer success programs, has resulted in remarkable retention rates and client satisfaction scores. She possesses a unique ability to bridge the gap between executive vision and operational execution, ensuring that every member of the organization understands their vital role in delivering exceptional customer experiences.
Education and Achievements
Amy is well-educated, having earned her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and an MBA with a concentration in Management Information Systems from the University of Central Florida. This solid educational foundation has provided her with the technical acumen and business insight necessary to lead in the fast-evolving tech landscape.
Her accomplishments are noteworthy and demonstrate her ability to drive impactful results. Not only has she managed a staggering $1 billion in ARR with a net retention rate (NRR) of 140% across EMEA/APJ, but she has also successfully scaled two global PaaS/SaaS companies from $0 to over $150 million in ARR. Amy’s strategic initiatives have led to a 99% logo retention rate and an incredible 171% net retention rate for two companies, further showcasing her expertise in managing customer success at scale.
Among her many achievements, Amy has led on-premise to SaaS transformations for customer-obsessed organizations, redefining how businesses think about their customer engagement strategy. Her leadership resulted in improved Net Promoter Score (NPS) ratings, successfully moving scores from below average to impressive figures of 65 and 85, respectively, illustrating her commitment to excellence in customer experience.
Notable Positions Held
Amy Downs has held a series of influential roles that have contributed significantly to her reputation as a leader in customer success and operational excellence. Some of her key positions include:
- Vice President of Customer Success at Shiftmove: In this capacity, Amy was instrumental in creating customer success strategies that fostered client engagement and satisfaction, leading the organization towards new heights of success.
- Founder & CEO at Customer Obsessing Consulting: By establishing her own consulting firm, Amy has been able to share her insights and strategies around customer success and organizational transformation, helping businesses unlock their full potential.
- VP Customer Success, Support & Professional Services, EMEA & APJ at Twilio Inc.: Her time at Twilio involved optimizing customer engagement and support across various regions, contributing to the company's strong market presence and user satisfaction.
- CCO (Chief Customer Success & Happiness Officer) at Lifesize: In this innovative role, Amy focused on ensuring that customer satisfaction was at the forefront of all strategic decisions, leading to superior client experiences.
- Vice President Customer Experience at Aspect Software: Amy played a critical role in shaping the customer journey, ensuring a seamless experience from start to finish.
- Director of Customer Experience at Aspect Software: Here, she further honed her skills in managing customer relationships and developing effective customer engagement frameworks.
Skills and Expertise
With a focus on global customer success, professional services, and support, Amy's specialties include:
- P&L ownership that drives profitability and sustainable growth.
- Customer obsession transformations that have consistently led to higher customer loyalty and satisfaction rates.
- Expertise in SaaS, PaaS, and UCPaaS models, reflecting her adaptability to varying business environments.
- Building world-class retention and managing Net ARR at scale for both enterprise and SMB clients.
- Leading cross-functional teams with high emotional quotient (EQ), ensuring that all voices are heard and integrated into the overall strategy.
- Process engineering and operational efficiencies that enhance productivity and drive results.
- Leveraging technology as a differentiator to create exceptional customer experiences at cost-effective rates.
- Developing go-to-market strategies for both direct and channel sales.
In her journey through the tech landscape, Amy has excelled as a project manager and software engineer in various notable companies including Fiserv and Teranex Systems. Her diverse experiences have not only contributed to her vast knowledge of the industry but have also equipped her with the tools needed to lead organizations successfully.
Achievements
- Managed $1B ARR with 140% NRR across EMEA/APJ.
- Scaled two Global PaaS/SaaS companies from $0 to over $150M ARR.
- Developed strategic accounts and large-scale customer success programs leading to 99% logo retention and 171% Net Retention.
- Successfully built three professional services organizations and two customer success teams from inception.
- Elevated NPS from below average to scores of 65 and 85, enhancing customer loyalty significantly.
- Orchestrated successful transformations from on-premise to SaaS models, supporting organizations in becoming more agile and customer-focused.
In conclusion, Amy Downs is a transformative leader whose experience and education have uniquely positioned her as an expert in enhancing customer success within the enterprise software sector. Her unwavering commitment to helping organizations operate with a customer-first mindset has enabled countless companies to thrive and reach their fullest potential. With her track record of extensive accomplishments and a passionate approach to leadership, Amy continues to inspire those around her to achieve exceptional results, making her a valued asset to any organization fortunate enough to work with her.
Location
People also viewed
Related People
Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.