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Harshal Deo
CTO at DriveWealth, Tech Advisor at Grokker
Professional Background
Harshal Deo is an accomplished technologist who has transitioned into a prominent product leader and general manager role at PayPal, where he currently spearheads a diverse portfolio that includes both recently acquired businesses and homegrown products. Under his leadership, the portfolio has achieved over a billion dollars in revenue with impressive double-digit growth, demonstrating his impactful influence in the eCommerce and global small to medium-sized business (SMB) sectors. In his capacity at PayPal, Harshal is responsible for developing and executing the integration strategy for the collective portfolio, managing various functions including Product, Technology, Operations, and Customer Success. His drive and passion are crucial as his team serves a wide-ranging clientele focused on B2B payments, marketplaces, and personalized shopping experiences.
Prior to his current role, Harshal amassed significant experience building and scaling large engineering and product teams at both PayPal and eBay. His strategic vision, coupled with a deep understanding of technology, has led to the successful definition and delivery of numerous large-scale platforms and services. Harshal's teams have pioneered and scaled innovative products that consolidate deep functionality into intuitive user experiences, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction worldwide.
Education and Achievements
Harshal's educational journey laid a solid foundation for his career in technology and product innovation. He earned his Bachelor's degree from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, followed by advanced studies in Mining at Stanford University, one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. This combination of technical acumen and critical thinking has equipped Harshal to tackle complex challenges in the tech industry effectively.
Throughout his career, Harshal has amassed a wealth of hands-on experience in distributed systems, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). At PayPal, he played a pivotal role in building the organization's first Big Data system, contributing significantly to its production capabilities. Additionally, he was instrumental in the design and implementation of PayPal’s inaugural neural network model for fraud detection, showcasing his innovative approach to leveraging technology for business needs.
Before his tenure at PayPal, Harshal led engineering teams at eBay, where he achieved notable milestones, including the development of eBay's first machine learning platform dedicated to fraud detection and personalized recommendations. His team’s optimization of the shopping experience for eBay buyers is particularly noteworthy, exemplified by the home page redesign that generated an impressive one billion page views per day.
His career also includes a significant role as an engineering manager at Asera, a startup that he joined in its early stages. During his four-year tenure there, Harshal navigated the organization through rapid growth, demonstrating his capability in steering teams through dynamic environments.
Achievements
What sets Harshal apart is not just his technical expertise but also his remarkable ability to identify innovative and strategic uses of technology that enhance customer value and scale operational efficiency. His work has led to numerous iterative innovations and pilot programs that opened new business opportunities and facilitated multi-billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. Not only has he delivered tangible results, but he has also excelled in cultivating diverse and high-performing leadership teams that drive success within global organizations.
In addition to his technical skills, Harshal is known for his commitment to building strong organizational cultures and fostering diversity within teams. His leadership style promotes inclusivity, enabling teams to thrive and achieve their collective goals. Harshal deems the success of his teams as crucial, and he continually advocates for environments where members can contribute their strengths towards shared objectives.
Harshal’s journey exemplifies the dynamic relationship between technology and business strategy. As a leader at PayPal, he remains committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation, ensuring that the products and services offered are not only competitive but also set new standards in the financial technology landscape. His proactive approach, combined with a knack for envisioning future trends, places him at the forefront of the tech industry, making him a sought-after expert and a visionary leader.
tags:[
product leader
general manager
PayPal
B2B payments
eCommerce
engineering teams
big data
AI
ML
fraud detection
personalized recommendations
leadership
Stanford University
eBay
Asera
Location
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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