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Devesh Thanvi
Director of Product Management - CPO - Founder - Cisco – HPE – Aruba – Veritas – Extreme – Panasonic – Startup - Cloud – Networking – Cybersecurity – SaaS – Hardware – Big Data – Cloud Native – ML/AI
Professional Background
Devesh Thanvi is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in product management, business development, and marketing, primarily within the technology industry. His impressive career has encompassed a significant $3B+ product line, showcasing his expertise in managing cross-functional and cross-company teams across global markets, including the U.S., Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia. Throughout his career, Devesh has developed a robust strategic vision that has enabled him to lead effectively in various pivotal roles such as product management, product marketing, and business development.
Recognized for his leadership abilities, Devesh is known for his effective communication skills and collaborative approach. He is passionate about innovation and operates with a customer-first mentality, ensuring that every product aligns with customer needs and expectations. His leadership has been instrumental in steering major product innovations, particularly at top-tier companies like Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where he played a crucial role in shaping their business roadmaps and directing investments towards next-generation products.
Devesh's ability to lead global teams—including Product Management, Product Development, and Technical Marketing—demonstrates his solid management skills. He has efficiently navigated matrix teams across various departments, including Business Development, Marketing, Sales, Channels, Professional Services, Finance, and Customer Support. His experience has imbued him with a strong understanding of the complexities involved in developing innovative products and solutions from the initial concept to achieving market leadership. His proficiency in ambiguous problem-solving allows him to masterfully manage diverse product types, including hardware, software, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products.
Education and Achievements
Devesh Thanvi's educational background is as impressive as his professional journey. He studied Business Development and Product Management at Stanford University, where he gained valuable insights into the strategic aspects of managing products in highly competitive markets. He further honed his technical expertise by earning a Master of Science (M.S.) in Computer Science from the prestigious University of Southern California. Earlier, he completed his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering from Rajiv Gandhi Prodyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, laying a strong technical foundation for his future endeavors.
Throughout his career, Devesh has not only excelled in product management but has also been recognized for his exceptional contributions to the field. He is a recipient of multiple Cisco achievement awards for leadership from 2008 to 2013, alongside multiple cloud innovation awards received in 2014 and 2015. These accolades underscore his commitment to excellence and innovation, both of which are pivotal to his professional philosophy.
Key Achievements
Devesh’s impressive career trajectory includes several significant positions and accomplishments. As the Chief Product Officer at a stealth startup, he is currently applying his extensive knowledge and experience to drive innovation in a forward-thinking environment. Before this role, he held the position of Director of Product Management at Extreme Networks, where he was instrumental in shaping product strategy and execution.
His role as Senior Principal Product Manager at Veritas Technologies LLC further exemplifies his strategic prowess in managing product lines effectively. Additionally, he has held roles as Global Product Line Manager at both Aruba—a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise—and Hewlett Packard Enterprise itself. During his tenure at Cisco Systems as a Senior Product Manager, Devesh demonstrated his capability in launching successful products that drive user adoption and market share growth.
Devesh's early career also includes notable positions, such as Software Engineer at Spirent Communications, where he began to cultivate his technical acumen in the field, as well as Project Lead at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd, further enriching his professional experience.
Conclusion
In summary, Devesh Thanvi has established himself as a highly regarded leader in the technology sector with a proven track record in product management, business development, and innovative marketing strategies. His extensive global experience, educational qualifications, and numerous accolades reinforce his position as a thought leader and a driving force behind successful product innovation. With a strategic mindset and customer-centric approach, Devesh continues to inspire teams and drive substantial growth in the technology industry.
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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:
- 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.
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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 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.
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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.