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Anna Saraceno
Product Manager at Trello
Professional Background
Anna Saraceno is a seasoned product designer turned product manager, who has cultivated an impressive career in the tech industry. With a strong focus on both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) products, Anna has successfully led product teams to tackle complex challenges. Her expertise lies in effectively framing problems, prioritizing tasks, and designing user-centric solutions that not only elevate customer satisfaction but also align with broader business goals.
Throughout her career, Anna has held various pivotal roles across multiple high-profile organizations, demonstrating her versatility and skill in product design and management. Currently, Anna serves as a Product Manager at Trello, where she utilizes her vast experience to drive product strategy and champion user experience. Before stepping into this role, she was a Senior Product Designer at Trello, where she honed her design skills and worked closely with cross-functional teams to create intuitive and impactful designs.
Prior to her tenure at Trello, Anna was the Principal Product Designer at Springbuk®, overseeing the design and development of innovative solutions that supported health analytics. She also freelanced as a UX/UI designer, allowing her to explore various industries, enhance her design toolkit, and gain unique insights into user behavior.
Anna's career journey began with her role as a Senior UX Designer at OurHealth, where she focused on crafting compelling user experiences in healthcare technology. She also contributed her expertise as a Senior Interaction Designer at Salesforce, a leading cloud-based company known for its customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Her foundational experiences as a User Experience Designer and Interaction Design Intern at Blackbaud and Cook Medical laid the groundwork for her future successes, allowing her to deepen her understanding of interaction design, usability, and the importance of user-centered thinking in product development.
With years of exposure to various facets of product design and management, Anna is also well-versed in effective communication. She is recognized for her clear articulation of concepts, her proactive facilitation skills during team discussions, and her engaging presentations that resonate with both technical and non-technical audiences. Her ability to bridge the gap between customer happiness and business viability empowers her to create products that are not only functional but also meaningful in users' lives.
Education and Achievements
Anna Saraceno holds two degrees from Indiana University Bloomington. She earned her Masters of Science in Human Computer Interaction Design, where she developed a deep understanding of how users interact with technology and the principles that guide effective user experience design. This master's program equipped her with the tools to explore design methodologies, conduct user research, and apply cognitive psychology principles to product development.
In addition to her master's degree, Anna graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health, focusing on Human Sexuality and Spanish. This diverse educational background has enriched her perspective, allowing her to merge design with a strong understanding of public health initiatives and cultural sensitivity. This unique combination of skills is particularly advantageous in the tech-driven health sector, where user experience must accommodate varied user needs and preferences.
Throughout her extensive career, Anna has consistently demonstrated her commitment to professional growth. She has gained valuable skills in product lifecycle management, user research, prototyping, and collaborative design processes. Her journey highlights the importance of adaptability and continuous learning in the dynamic field of product design and management.
Notable Achievements
- Product Development at Trello: As the current Product Manager, Anna has played a critical role in launching user-oriented features that have significantly improved the Trello user experience.
- Design Leadership at Springbuk®: Her leadership as Principal Product Designer was instrumental in creating solutions that improved health data accessibility for users, making a tangible difference in healthcare analytics.
- Influence in Healthcare Tech: As a Senior UX Designer at OurHealth, she helped transform user experiences in the health sector, showcasing the vital linkage between well-designed products and improved health outcomes.
- Awards and Recognition: Throughout her stellar career, Anna has received accolades for her innovative design contributions and for her ability to foster creativity within teams. She is known for encouraging a culture of collaboration and user-focused thinking, essential elements that drive successful products.
- Community Engagement: Anna’s role as a Communications Coordinator at Indiana University Graduate and Professional Student Organization demonstrates her commitment to community involvement and student advocacy, further showcasing her strong interpersonal skills and passion for collaboration.
Overall, Anna Saraceno represents a blend of creativity, strategy, and empathy, making her a standout professional in the field of product design and management. Her journey showcases how a dual background in both health and technology can transform user experience in impactful ways. Anna’s commitment to enhancing user value while aligning with business objectives continues to propel her success and the success of the organizations she is a part of.
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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:
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- 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.
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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.
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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.