Suggestions
Josh Klein
Board Member | CEO | CyberSecurity | AI | Innovation | Strategist | Author | Podcast Host | Advisor to F500 Leaders, Scale-ups, & PE
Professional Background
Josh Klein is a highly accomplished Board Member, CEO, and Strategist with a rich tapestry of experience spanning over two decades. His career is defined by a deep commitment to innovation and technology, which has positioned him as a leading voice in the realm of business disruption and technological advancement. Throughout his career, Josh has worked extensively with Fortune 500 companies, applying his broad technical expertise and deep domain knowledge to provide critical oversight and strategic insights on disruptive technologies. His involvement with high-profile organizations includes serving on an advisory board for BP and sharing his expertise with institutions such as the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and Korn Ferry.
Recognized for his contributions to the industry, Josh specializes in various topics including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, policy development, leadership, and process improvement across multiple sectors. His understanding of business disruption as "crisis in motion" has led him to focus on developing solutions that help organizations navigate transformative challenges effectively.
Education and Achievements
Josh's educational background includes a Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Hacking from New York University, equipping him with cutting-edge knowledge in technology and security. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Western Washington University (WWU), which has enhanced his understanding of human behavior and cultural dynamics—an essential skill for strategists navigating the multifaceted world of innovation.
Over the years, Josh has made significant strides in his career. He was instrumental in the development of the first e-commerce engine, demonstrated adeptness in launching shortcodes within the US Telco industry, and played a pivotal role in deploying the first cloud computing EKG analytics instance. His breadth of experience spans a variety of organizations, from consulting at IDEO to providing expertise to numerous US Intelligence agencies.
Publications and Media Presence
An accomplished author, Josh has penned three influential books on innovation, contributing to the ongoing conversation about technological advancement and its impact on society. In addition to his writing, he has hosted three television series exploring themes such as the history of technological innovation, advancements in gaming, and China's unique position on the global stage. His insights are frequently sought by prominent media outlets, with features and interviews appearing in esteemed publications from Fortune to Oprah.
For the past two decades, Josh has shared his knowledge through a myriad of engaging talks at prestigious events including the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, TED Mainstage, and numerous corporate gatherings around the world. His ability to translate complex technical findings into actionable strategies makes him a sought-after speaker and thought leader.
Most recently, he has co-hosted Accenture's "Built for Change," which has earned accolades as "Thought Leadership of the Year" by Adweek for two consecutive years.
Key Organizations and Roles
Josh's career is peppered with impressive roles and affiliations with various respected organizations. He has transitioned through numerous leadership and consulting roles, including:
- Connector of Things and People at GROUP OF HUMANS®: A position wherein he facilitated collaboration and innovation among diverse stakeholders.
- CEO at Indigometrics: Leading a company focused on data metrics and analysis to drive strategic decisions.
- Advisor at Worksuite (formerly Shortlist): Sharing his expertise to influence company direction and industry standards.
- Expert Advisor at World 50, Inc.: Offering insights to top executives from around the globe, guiding them through challenges and opportunities.
- Advisory Board Member at VENTURE.co: Contributing to the strategic direction of a vibrant startup ecosystem.
- Advisory Board Member at Singularity University: Engaging with future-focused leaders on exponential technology and societal impact.
- Interim CTO at IMAX Labs: Utilizing his technical expertise to enhance innovative projects in a leading entertainment technology company.
Josh's other past roles include Project Specialist, System Specialist, Project Manager, and various advisory and consulting roles that emphasize his versatility and depth of knowledge across industries. Each role has contributed significantly to his understanding of technological trends and corporate strategy, further enhancing his ability to serve as an authority in the fields of innovation and technology.
Achievements and Contributions
Josh Klein's career is not just characterized by the positions he has held but also by the impact he has made. His thoughtful approach to technology and strategy has allowed him to make meaningful contributions across a variety of sectors. Here are some notable achievements:
- Innovator in Technology: Key developer behind significant technological advancements, including the very first e-commerce engine and cloud computing EKG analytics, positioning him at the forefront of the tech industry.
- Globally Recognized Speaker: His engagement as a speaker at major events worldwide signifies the value placed on his insights and thought leadership. His ability to connect effectively with a variety of audiences is a testament to his communication skills and expertise.
- Influential Publications: With three published books and numerous articles, Josh has established himself as a credible voice in technology and innovation discourse. His work reaches a broad audience, contributing to the ongoing dialogue about the future of technology and society.
- Awards and Recognition: His recent accolade for Accenture's "Built for Change" as "Thought Leadership of the Year" highlights his commitment to excellence in thought leadership and strategic consulting across businesses.
In summary, Josh Klein is not just a leader in technology strategy; he embodies a culture of innovation and commitment to collaboration that is vital in today’s rapidly evolving landscape. Whether through his board memberships, advisory roles, or engaging public speaking, Josh remains dedicated to transforming complex technological topics into actionable insights for organizations seeking to navigate the future confidently. To learn more about his work and contributions, visit his website at www.josh.is.
Location
Related People
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.