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Jeff Dennis
Deputy Director for Transmission Development, US DOE Grid Deployment Office; Immediate Past Chair at American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources (SEER)
Professional Background
Jeff Dennis is a distinguished energy and environmental lawyer and policy specialist with over 20 years of extensive experience across both public and private sectors. He has made significant contributions to critical issues pertaining to the electricity, natural gas, and oil pipeline industries. His deep understanding of the complexities surrounding utility regulation and transmission infrastructure expansion has made him a trusted advisor in these areas. Jeff’s expertise extends to competitive wholesale electricity markets where he has adeptly guided clients and organizations through various regulatory challenges at both state and federal levels.
An integral part of Jeff's career was spent at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), where he held numerous influential positions for over a decade. He served as the Director of the Division of Policy Development from 2013 to 2015, overseeing crucial initiatives aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of FERC policies and identifying new and emerging policy issues that fall within the commission's statutory responsibilities. Prior to this, Jeff served as a legal advisor to FERC Commissioner John R. Norris, providing comprehensive legal and policy advice across multiple facets of FERC’s regulatory purview in the electricity, natural gas, and oil pipeline sectors. Early in his career, Jeff also demonstrated his legal acumen at FERC’s Solicitor’s Office, where he successfully briefed and argued various cases on behalf of the agency in federal appellate courts.
With a robust network and active involvement in professional organizations, Jeff is currently the Chair of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy and Resources. He is a respected leader within the Energy Bar Association and has made a name for himself as a prolific writer, contributing numerous articles to both trade and scholarly publications. As a frequent speaker on energy and environmental law topics, Jeff continues to share his insights and knowledge with industry peers and audiences.
Education and Achievements
Jeff’s academic background is as impressive as his professional career. He earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) with a focus on Natural Resources and Energy Law from the University of New Mexico School of Law, where he was recognized as a member of the prestigious Order of the Coif, honoring his academic excellence in legal studies. Additionally, he holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Politics from Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, graduating summa cum laude, further cementing his scholarly pedigree.
His commitment to education goes beyond his formal training; he has also served as a Moot Court Coach at the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University, where he shared his expertise with law students preparing for their future careers in law.
Organizations and Leadership Roles
Throughout his career, Jeff has held numerous pivotal leadership roles within influential organizations. He previously served as the Deputy Director for Transmission Development at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where he played an essential part in advancing critical energy initiatives. His leadership extended to positions as Managing Director and General Counsel, as well as General Counsel for Regulatory Affairs at Advanced Energy Economy (AEE). His legal expertise was also showcased during his tenure as Special Counsel in the Energy Practice at Jenner & Block and as Senior Counsel for Energy Regulation, Markets, and Enforcement at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
In addition to his role at FERC, Jeff’s contributions to the Edison Electric Institute as Director of Federal Regulatory Affairs and as an Appellate Attorney further highlight his dynamic capability in navigating regulatory environments, showcasing his adaptability and strategic thinking.
Jeff’s ongoing involvement with professional organizations, including significant roles at the American Bar Association, reflects his dedication to the legal and energy communities. He served as a Foundation Board Member and Notes Editor for the Energy Law Journal, ensuring the dissemination of critical legal knowledge to peers in the industry.
Notable Achievements
Jeff Dennis has been recognized not just for his legal wisdom but also for his commitment to advancing the fields of energy and environmental law. His breadth of experience in both public service and private practice uniquely positions him as a thought leader and expert in the sector. His tenure at FERC and various leadership roles within esteemed organizations highlight his dedication to regulating and shaping energy policies that serve the interests of consumers and the environment alike.
He has been the recipient of several accolades throughout his career, reflecting his contributions and impact on energy law and policy. As a published author and speaker, Jeff has effectively contributed to the evolution of the field, impacting both emerging professionals and established practitioners. His ability to address complex regulatory challenges resonates throughout his public speaking engagements and published works, solidifying his status as a leading figure in energy and environmental law.
In conclusion, Jeff Dennis stands out as an expert in energy and environmental law, combining deep legal knowledge with extensive practical experience. With a career dedicated to navigating the intricacies of utility regulation and energy policy, he continues to be a valuable resource and leader in the legal community.
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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.