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David Lemayian
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Professional Background
David Lemayian is a highly accomplished technical consultant and a mission-driven entrepreneur whose influence spans across various domains, including open data, civic technology, and digital security. With an impressive career dedicated to improving technology frameworks within nonprofit and governmental institutions, David has played a pivotal role in enhancing civic engagement through technology.
He was instrumental in establishing Code for Africa (CfA), which is heralded as the largest network of open data and civic technology labs on the African continent. Serving as its Chief Technologist and Executive Director, David drove major initiatives that equipped organizations with innovative tools and platforms to leverage data effectively. Under his guidance, CfA developed strategies that enabled citizens and civil society to interact with government entities transparently and efficiently.
In addition to his role at CfA, David's efforts have led to the significant progression of technology applications within the civic sector. He was awarded the prestigious Knight International Journalism Fellowship by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), where he provided thought leadership and strategic direction to engineering teams across eight countries. His contributions have redefined how citizens engage with their governments and hold them accountable, making significant impacts in the fields of journalism and public participation.
Throughout his career, David has spearheaded several notable data liberation projects. His work includes creating openAFRICA.net, which stands as the largest civic data repository in Africa, and establishing sourceAFRICA.net, the continent's foremost collection of investigative evidence and leaked documents. These repositories have empowered journalists and activists to foster transparency and advocacy in a challenging environment.
Among his varied contributions, David has collaborated with key organizations such as the World Bank and the Ministry of Treasury in Kenya to refine the software architecture of the open-contracting e-Promis platform. He has also developed the GotToVote (GtV) toolkit, which has proliferated across five countries, helping citizens enhance voter registration processes. The impact of GtV is profound: it helped unmask over 40,000 ghost voters in Malawi and streamlined voter registration in Ghana, ultimately assisting over a million voters in Kenya to confirm their registration details.
Alongside his technical endeavors, David has led the digital security lab for the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR). The lab focuses on equipping newsrooms and investigative NGOs with indispensable digital tools to securely communicate with whistleblowers and protect against potential cyber threats. Noteworthy projects under David’s leadership include critical transnational investigations such as the #PanamaPapers, which scrutinized illicit financial networks, and investigations targeting Italian mafia assets in Africa.
Education and Achievements
David Lemayian's academic journey is as diverse as his professional career. He began by studying Business and Information Technology (BBIT) at Strathmore University, where he acquired a solid foundation in technical skills and business principles. His passion for aviation led him to pursue a private helicopter pilot license at BAC Helicopter, highlighting his commitment to lifelong learning and exploration of new fields.
Furthermore, David studied accounting through the ACCA program at Strathmore University, complementing his technical knowledge with a strong understanding of financial principles. Early in his educational career, he achieved his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) at Strathmore School, where he excelled in subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, equipping him with essential analytical skills.
His diverse educational background provides David with unique insights as he approaches technology challenges, ensuring that solutions are both technically sound and strategically aligned with organizational goals.
Notable Achievements
- Knight International Journalism Fellowship: Recognized for his exceptional contributions to journalism and civic technology, David received the Knight International Journalism Fellowship, a prestigious honor that reflects his commitment to empowering other professionals in the field.
- Development of openAFRICA.net and sourceAFRICA.net: Under David's leadership, these platforms were launched, significantly enhancing access to civic data and investigative resources across Africa, thereby engaging citizens and civic groups in governance processes.
- GotToVote Toolkit: Developed the innovative GtV toolkit, enabling citizens to verify their voter registration status and contribute to clean and fair elections across multiple African countries.
- Leadership in Digital Security Initiatives: By directing the digital security lab for ANCIR, David has enhanced the safety and integrity of digital communications for journalists, thereby fostering a safer environment for investigative reporting.
- Collaboration with International Organizations: David's collaboration with entities like the World Bank has been crucial in refining public contracting platforms to encourage transparency in government procurement processes.
In addition to his impressive list of accomplishments, David continues to contribute to the evolution of technology and data strategies, empowering organizations to harness the power of digital tools for public good. His unique blend of skills in technology, journalism, and social entrepreneurship makes him a key figure in the fields of civic engagement and digital transformation.
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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
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- 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.