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Curt Kramer
Senior Legal Executive│Senior Vice President and General Counsel ►► Securities Law, Governance, Finance, M&A, Litigation
Professional Background
Curt Kramer is a highly experienced business lawyer with over 15 years of exemplary service in the legal field, particularly in representing public companies. His extensive expertise comes from his specialization in securities law, corporate governance, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and high-profile litigation. Throughout his career, Curt has been a trusted counsel, providing invaluable insights and guidance on complex corporate legal matters.
Early in his career, Curt honed his skills in private practice, where he was dedicated to representing and advising corporations on a range of significant issues, including securities regulations, tax implications, and major transactional matters. Despite reaching a pivotal stage in his career where the traditional law firm culture no longer aligned with his aspirations, Curt's passion for the legal profession persisted. He contemplated an unorthodox career shift, humorously considering selling hotdogs outside Fenway Park, yet fate had a different path in store for him.
Curt's move to an in-house corporate role marked a turning point in his career. This pivotal shift ignited his enthusiasm for business and he accepted a long-term position with Navistar International Corporation, where he currently excels as the Senior Vice President and General Counsel. In this role, he oversees critical responsibilities across a variety of domains including corporate governance, securities, financing, tax, and foreign legal affairs.
During his impactful tenure at Navistar, Curt has played a crucial role in numerous significant corporate events. His experience spans multiple facets of corporate law such as:
- Mergers & Acquisitions: Handling complex negotiations and ensuring compliance with securities laws.
- Corporate Governance & Finance: Providing actionable advice to navigate the intricacies of corporate governance practices and financial regulations.
- Securities Law: Ensuring that corporate actions align with existing laws and guidelines set forth by regulatory bodies.
- Complex Lawsuits: Managing high-stakes litigation matters with diligence and strategic foresight.
- SEC Investigations: Navigating through investigations with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ensuring compliance, and addressing potential legal risks.
- Board & Leadership Turnovers: Facilitating seamless transitions within corporate leadership and managing legal aspects of such changes.
- Corporate & Legal Department Restructurings: Driving initiatives for efficiency and effectiveness within the legal department and broader corporation.
- Stockholder Meetings: Ensuring successful execution and compliance during shareholder engagement activities.
Alongside his vast expertise in securities and corporate law, Curt has mastered the ability to communicate complex legal concepts in a manner that is digestible and understandable for various stakeholders. He prides himself on being a hands-on leader and mentor, empowering those around him to excel and understand the intricacies of corporate law.
Curt's strengths lie in negotiating large-scale agreements, navigating sensitive internal investigations, and lawsuits, addressing potential disclosure issues preemptively, and maintaining trusting relationships with stakeholders while ensuring corporate compliance and protecting the interests of the organization.
Education and Achievements
Curt Kramer has cultivated a solid educational foundation that has equipped him with the necessary skills to excel in corporate law. He is a distinguished alumnus of several esteemed institutions:
- Master of Laws (LL.M.): Curt earned a Dual LL.M. in Securities and Tax from Georgetown University Law Center, underscoring his depth of knowledge in these specialized areas of law.
- Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.): He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Miami, where he laid the groundwork for his future business acumen and legal expertise.
- Juris Doctor (J.D.): Curt obtained his law degree from Quinnipiac University School of Law, further solidifying his commitment to the legal profession.
Throughout his career, he has been an active member of various legal organizations and has served in capacities that align with his professional journey. Notable previous positions include:
- Corporate Associate at Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer
- Corporate Associate at Cummings & Lockwood
- Associate at Maloney & Knox
- Student Observer at the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), an experience that provided invaluable insights into the workings of regulatory frameworks governing public companies.
Achievements
Curt's career is marked by numerous achievements that highlight his commitment to excellence and professionalism in the legal field. Among his many contributions, his significant involvement in high-stakes mergers and acquisitions, successful navigation of complex legal cases, and proactive approach to corporate governance stand out.
Curt's ability to lead and mentor others is not only commendable but vital in fostering a culture of compliance and competence within Navistar’s legal team. His hands-on leadership style ensures that individuals under his guidance are well-prepared to handle intricate legal matters and drive strategic initiatives that contribute to the overall success of the corporation.
His career narrative is not just about positions and titles; it reflects a dedicated professional who has passionately invested in both his career growth and the success of the organizations he has been part of. With a blend of legal expertise and business savviness, Curt Kramer continues to make a significant impact in the world of corporate law, reinforcing the importance of strong legal counsel in the governance and operations of public companies.
In summary, Curt's remarkable journey from private practice to his strategic role at Navistar International Corporation serves as an inspiring testament of dedication, adaptability, and unwavering commitment to excellence in the field of law. His ability to navigate the complexities of corporate legal challenges while fostering trust and compliance makes him a key asset to any organization he represents.
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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
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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.
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.