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Heidi Isern
VP Experience @ Narvar (ex Gap Inc, IDEO, & Kurt Salmon)
Professional Background
Heidi Isern is a transformational digital leader whose extensive career spans two decades, marked by her ability to drive go-to-market (GTM) strategies and innovate in the realm of digital transformation. With a wealth of knowledge in e-commerce, product management, and user experience (UX), Heidi has successfully led initiatives that put end-users at the forefront of product development. Her capabilities extend into Software as a Service (SaaS) product marketing and customer experience management, where she has consistently provided exceptional value to stakeholders and consumers alike.
Throughout her career, Heidi has held influential positions that have allowed her to shape strategic direction effectively. Notably, she served as the Vice President of Experience at Narvar, where she was instrumental in enhancing customer journeys through thoughtful design and innovative solutions. Her tenure at Narvar also included her role as Head of Design & Research, where she ensured that user experience was a priority in all company initiatives.
Before her impactful work at Narvar, Heidi held key roles at Gap Inc., where she was the Head of User Experience and Innovation as well as the Senior Director of Product Management and Innovation. In these capacities, she drove efforts to blend innovative thinking with robust product strategies, contributing significantly to the company’s success in a competitive retail landscape.
In addition to her corporate accomplishments, Heidi has also been a dynamic force in the nonprofit sector, having acted as the Managing Director for BLK SHP Foundation and Parliament Inc. Her leadership abilities have allowed her to develop meaningful partnerships and manage relationships with C-suite executives, showcasing her versatility and strategic acumen in a variety of organizational contexts.
Education and Achievements
Heidi’s educational background laid a solid foundation for her remarkable career in business and marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics from the prestigious University of Washington, where she developed a keen understanding of economic principles and their application in business decision-making. Fueled by her passion for marketing, Heidi furthered her education with an MBA exchange in Marketing at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, which broadened her global perspective and enriched her understanding of international markets.
Her academic journey continued at the UW Foster School of Business, where she completed her MBA with a focus on Marketing. This advanced degree not only equipped her with strategic marketing insights but also honed her leadership capabilities, preparing her for the high-impact roles she would later undertake in her career.
Heidi’s diverse experiences and educational achievements have made her a sought-after speaker and writer. Her ability to communicate complex topics in an engaging manner helps her to connect with audiences and inspire others in the field of digital innovation and customer experience.
Professional Roadmap
Heidi’s career has been marked by a series of progressive roles, showcasing her expertise and leadership in various capacities. Starting as a Professional Marketing expert at Philips (Sonicare), she quickly gained valuable industry knowledge that paved the way for her next ventures. Her experience at Kurt Salmon, part of Accenture Strategy, further enhanced her consulting skills and strategic thinking, preparing her for the entrepreneurial journey that followed.
As the founder and executive strategy consultant at Chameleon Endeavors Consulting, she provided strategic guidance to numerous organizations, leveraging her insights to amplify their market presence. This entrepreneurial experience solidified her status as a thought leader in the industry.
Later, Heidi displayed her innovative spirit as a Senior Lead at IDEO, where she immersed herself in design thinking and user-centered innovation. This experience directly contributed to her roles at Narvar and Gap Inc., where she consistently championed the importance of user experience and innovative technology in enhancing customer interaction.
Heidi's impressive professional history is underpinned by her ability to navigate complex challenges and adapt to changing market dynamics. Her commitment to excellence is evidenced in each of her roles, reflecting her passion for driving change and fostering collaboration among teams.
Achievements
Throughout her career, Heidi Isern has amassed numerous achievements that underscore her influence and expertise in the digital landscape. Her work in spearheading innovative GTM strategies has significantly impacted the businesses she has worked with, contributing to their growth and customer satisfaction.
Heidi's focus on user experience has led to the design of memorable customer journeys that have garnered industry recognition. Under her leadership, organizations have successfully enhanced their product offerings through a user-centric approach, demonstrating her commitment to ensuring that customer needs are prioritized.
Moreover, her ability to forge strong partnerships and manage high-level relationships has positioned her as a trusted advisor within the industry. Heidi’s dynamic speaking engagements and writing initiatives reflect her desire to share knowledge and inspire the next generation of leaders in digital innovation and marketing.
In conclusion, Heidi Isern stands out as a transformational digital leader with a robust background in business, marketing, and customer experience. Her commitment to innovation, user satisfaction, and strategic growth continues to make a significant impact in her field, solidifying her role as an influential figure in the world of 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
- 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.