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Joel Michael
Environmentalist - Thought Leadership & Advisory - Climate Action, Carbon Neutrality, Net Zero & ESG, Carbon & Plastic Credits, Circular Economy & Sustainability - Startups - Investor
Professional Background
Joel Michael is a prominent figure in the fields of entrepreneurship and investment, known for his unwavering commitment to addressing climate change and fostering sustainable economic practices. With an extensive background as a Private Equity Portfolio Manager, he has dedicated his career to developing Circular Economy Ecosystems that not only contribute to the planet’s well-being but also enhance the livelihoods of communities. Joel serves on the Board of the Climate Institute, the world's oldest institution dedicated to climate change, where he endeavors to influence policy and action for a sustainable future.
As a passionate advocate for the agricultural community, Joel has initiated the 'One Billion Farmers' Mission, aimed at uplifting the living standards of farmers and waste-pickers across India and Africa. This significant program underscores his dedication to sustainable development and social equity. By nurturing local economies and promoting environmental awareness, Joel is at the forefront of creating impactful change in these regions.
Beyond his work in policy and community upliftment, Joel shapes future generations as a mentor to students aspiring to lead in climate initiatives. He coaches young leaders on topics surrounding sustainability, entrepreneurship, and social impact, working to inspire a new wave of changemakers committed to a greener tomorrow.
Joel’s expertise also extends to helping organizations achieve Carbon Neutrality. He specializes in the development and implementation of Carbon Offset Projects that align with the global target of reaching Net Zero emissions. His focus areas include innovative solutions such as decarbonisation strategies, Waste to Energy projects, plastic recycling, reforestation, green mobility initiatives, food-wastage reduction, and leveraging blockchain technology for social good.
In addition to his extensive project work, Joel is known for hosting the podcast 'Pods Green Earth', where he interviews industry leaders and innovators in the fields of Climate Change and Sustainability, providing listeners with insights and inspiration.
Education and Achievements
Joel Michael began his academic journey at Pune University, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration. His foundational education at St. Vincent's High School provided him with a rich background in English Language and Literature, equipping him with the communication skills crucial for his career trajectory.
His formidable accomplishments have not gone unnoticed in the media, with features in prestigious outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Economic Times, Digital Trends, and Forbes, where he was nominated in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. His speaking engagements cover innovative topics like 'Circular Economy: Profit from & for Good' and 'Climate Entrepreneurship', emphasizing the intersection of profitability and environmental stewardship.
Governments and Organizations Worked With
Throughout his career, Joel has collaborated with numerous governments and ministries around the globe, including those of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, India, the USA, the UK, France, Brazil, various African nations, and Australia. His work has spanned various ministries including the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence, Ministry of Health & Prevention, and the Ministry of Education, showcasing his versatility and impact across different sectors.
He has also partnered with high-profile organizations such as Facebook, Uber, Tesla, NASA, and JP Morgan, reinforcing his status as a leading figure in sustainable development. These collaborations have positioned him at the cutting edge of climate innovation and policy development.
Advisory & Project Collaborations
Joel has undertaken advisory and project collaborations with an array of renowned firms and institutions, including the World Economic Forum, Dubai Expo, Boeing, and Disney, among others. His experience with such influential entities has enabled him to contribute meaningfully to major sustainability projects across various industries, from transportation to technology.
His past roles include being a Partner at Helion Ventures and serving on the Advisory Board of ELSA Industry, further demonstrating his deep commitment to fostering innovation in sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Community and University Engagement
In academia, Joel has held positions that reflect his passion for sharing knowledge, serving as a guest lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at Heriot-Watt University, as well as a mentor in sustainability at Zayed University. These endeavors highlight his belief in the importance of education and mentorship in nurturing future leaders.
Joel’s collaborations with prestigious universities like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT underline his commitment to knowledge-sharing and innovation in sustainable practices. Together, these institutions work towards developing impactful programs that address pressing global challenges.
Notable Awards and Acknowledgments
In recognition of his significant contributions to environmental initiatives, Joel was nominated for the 'Champions of the Earth Award' in 2024 by the UN Environment Programme. This esteemed recognition attests to his dedication to advancing sustainable practices and addressing climate change through innovative solutions.
tags':['Entrepreneurship','Climate Change','Private Equity','Circular Economy','Sustainability','Investor','Carbon Neutrality','Social Impact','Decarbonisation','Waste Management','Podcast Host','Green Initiatives','Climate Leadership','Mentorship','Community Development','University Collaboration','Public Speaking','Media Features','International Collaborations'],
questions':['How did Joel Michael develop his expertise in climate change and sustainability?', 'What inspired Joel Michael to launch the One Billion Farmers Mission?', 'In what ways has Joel Michael contributed to the education of young climate leaders?', 'How does Joel Michael approach the challenge of achieving Carbon Neutrality for organizations?', 'What are some of the innovations Joel is investing in for a sustainable future?']},
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Mutual Connections
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.
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