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Anuj Kumar
Strategic GTM Executive building globally diverse teams driving high growth revenue in complex SaaS, Cloud, Open Source. Ex Red Hat | Ex VMWare | Ex NetApp
Professional Background
Anuj Kumar is a visionary leader in the technology sector, particularly renowned for his expertise in cloud services, sales strategy, and transformative business growth. His recent role with the global cloud team at NetApp is a testament to his ability to navigate and drive substantial change in a rapidly evolving industry. During his tenure at NetApp, he spearheaded initiatives that resulted in an impressive leap in revenue from $100 million to an astounding $600 million within just 11 quarters. This remarkable growth was facilitated by the development of the first-ever Go-To-Market strategy for "native service" across the leading public cloud platforms, showcasing Anuj's innovative approach to capturing market opportunities.
Anuj's career spans a diverse array of organizations and capacities. He served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager for North America at SUSE, where he honed his skills in managing complex operations and driving sales across the region. Prior to this, he held the position of Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at HUMAN, further solidifying his reputation as a leader capable of driving revenue growth through strategic oversight.
He has also made significant contributions to VMware as the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Cloud Sales & Customer Success, where his leadership helped shape the sales strategy for cloud-native applications. His previous roles include Vice President of Cloud, Applications & Data Services Sales at Rackspace, and Vice President of Sales for Security Services at VERISIGN, underscoring a career built on expertise in both cloud computing and security solutions.
Anuj's global experience includes being the Worldwide Senior Vice President of Sales at Mirantis and balancing roles in different regions as General Manager in India, the Middle East, and Africa at Red Hat. His career commenced at Wipro Infotech Ltd, where he proved himself as a Product Manager in the Asia-Pacific region. This varied history of leadership around the world represents his rich knowledge of market dynamics and his ability to build successful teams in diverse environments.
Education and Achievements
Anuj Kumar's educational qualifications reflect his commitment to continuous learning and excellence in business. He has studied at several prestigious institutions, earning notable credentials that enhance his professional profile. Most prominently, he studied CMI, CMI at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he gained critical insights into management and strategy. Complementing this experience, Anuj furthered his expertise in business strategy by participating in the Finance for Executives program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
His academic foundation began with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering (EEE) from BIT Mesra, where he engaged in the Student-Industry Relations Cell, focusing on bridging the gap between academic learning and industry practices. This blend of technical understanding and business acumen has enabled Anuj to navigate complex challenges in the technology sector with ease.
Personal Philosophy and Leadership Style
Anuj Kumar's approach to leadership is greatly influenced by his extensive travels and interactions with diverse cultures across nine cities on three continents. This rich array of experiences has cultivated a robust understanding of the importance of teamwork and inclusivity in achieving business goals. Anuj believes that just as a leader in a cycling race relies on a supportive team, successful business outcomes stem from a cohesive and dynamic group of individuals.
Emphasizing the value of heterogeneous teams, he is dedicated to assembling groups that encompass a variety of skill sets, experiences, backgrounds, and genders. His philosophy is rooted in the belief that diversity in teams not only fosters creativity and innovation but also enhances problem-solving capabilities that are vital for sustaining competitive advantage in today's global marketplace.
Anuj's leadership style is characterized by collaboration, open communication, and a commitment to mentorship. He prioritizes the development of his team members, empowering them to take ownership of their work while guiding them with insightful strategies and support. His mentorship has positively impacted numerous professionals in the technology industry, ultimately contributing to a stronger, more versatile workforce.
Achievements
Throughout his impressive career, Anuj Kumar has not only led organizations to significant growth but has also played a pivotal role in defining industry standards and practices. His most notable achievement, leading NetApp's revenue increase, exemplifies his capability to create and implement successful sales strategies that align with market demands.
Furthermore, his strategic contributions to pioneering Go-To-Market strategies highlight his ability to innovate and position products effectively in a competitive landscape. Anuj has consistently demonstrated a knack for establishing and leading international Go-To-Market teams and has adeptly catered to both direct and indirect channels, ensuring that economic options are tailored to meet customer needs.
By engaging with disruptive open-source software movements—spanning Distribution, Managed Services, and OSS Support—Anuj has positioned himself as an expert in the converging worlds of technology and business, navigating the complexities of these evolving domains with agility.
In conclusion, Anuj Kumar's trajectory is a compelling story of leadership, innovation, and a global perspective on business dynamics that continues to influence the cloud technology landscape and beyond. His commitment to fostering diverse teams and driving transformative growth remains at the forefront of his personal and professional endeavors.
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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.