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Jay Highland
Executive Creative Leader - Imagining must-see experiences that make people fall in love with brands
Professional Background
Jay Highland is a highly innovative professional with a deep-rooted belief in the emotional magnetism of physical spaces. With years of experience dedicated to brand strategy and creative consulting, Jay specializes in transforming physical dimensions into memorable experiences that resonate with consumers. His career has been a journey of bold disruption—he has continually pushed boundaries to unlock the full potential of real-world destinations for various brands. Jay understands the significance of designing not just aesthetically pleasing but emotionally engaging spaces that captivate and connect with guests throughout their interaction journey.
Jay’s professional history is marked by a series of prominent roles in some of the leading creative organizations. As the Chief Creative Officer at Chute Gerdeman, he spearheaded several high-impact projects that redefined consumer engagement through sensory experiences. His ability to empathize with the audience and harness insights led to transformative strategies that elevated brand experiences and enhanced guest satisfaction. Prior to this role, he served as Vice President, Account & Creative, and worked as a Creative Director, where he integrated strategic design and marketing communications to create impactful brand narratives.
At FITCH, Jay applied his expertise as a Creative Director to unify brand identity with customer experiences, ensuring that every touchpoint was thoughtfully designed to inspire brand loyalty. His extensive career also includes the role of Director, Brand Communications, and Creative Director at Chute Gerdeman Retail. Here, he focused on brand storytelling and immersive design solutions that left lasting impressions on consumers.
In addition to his leadership roles, Jay has proven himself as an invaluable consultant and designer in the industry. He has collaborated with organizations like Stoltze Design, where his contributions as a Design Consultant enhanced brand aesthetics and optimized consumer interactions. His tenure at Sametz Blackstone Associates and Philip Johnson Associates further solidified his reputation as a visionary designer who knows how to deliver on the expectations of various stakeholders.
Education and Achievements
Jay Highland’s educational background reflects his foundational expertise in design, as he studied Graphic Design at the University of Cincinnati. His academic grounding in design principles equipped him with the skills necessary to create visually striking and emotionally resonant spaces that evoke feelings and drive consumer behavior.
Throughout his career, Jay has championed a collaborative approach to creativity, emphasizing that successful business endeavors are collective efforts that require the input and expertise of various team members. This philosophy not only empowers individuals within his teams but also leads to innovative solutions that address real business challenges.
His ability to rally teams around common goals, cultivating an environment ripe for creativity and collaboration, has resulted in numerous successful projects that have garnered recognition in the industry. Jay has effectively built bridges between creative strategy and brand execution, ensuring that every campaign is a harmonious blend of insight, creativity, and empathetic design.
Notable Achievements
Among Jay's notable achievements are his impactful leadership roles that have driven significant advancements in brand engagement strategies. His tenure at Chute Gerdeman resulted in the creation of award-winning design solutions that have redefined retail experiences.
Jay is widely recognized for his strategic approach to creative challenges, leveraging his insights to create powerful narratives that resonate with target audiences. His visionary leadership has inspired teams to break down barriers and establish a cohesive creative process, ultimately leading to remarkable achievements across various branding initiatives.
In his various roles, Jay has not only championed creativity but has also mentored emerging talent, fostering a new generation of designers and strategists who are equally passionate about creating compelling brand experiences. His commitment to nurturing talent and promoting a culture of collaboration is a testament to his belief in the potential of team-driven creativity.
In summary, Jay Highland is a dynamic leader in the field of brand strategy and creative design, known for his ability to transform physical spaces into captivating consumer experiences. His career is characterized by innovative roles that blend strategic insight with empathetic design, making him a pivotal figure in the realm of sensory engagement. With an educational background in graphic design and extensive experience across prestigious organizations, Jay continues to lead the conversation on how brands can effectively connect with their audiences in meaningful ways.
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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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- 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.
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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.
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.