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Keva Walton
Chief Executive Officer at Mecklenburg County Alcoholic Beverage Control Board
Professional Background
Keva Walton is a highly accomplished leader with extensive experience in senior leadership roles across a diverse range of industries. Throughout her career, she has been instrumental in aligning strategic objectives with operational capabilities, ensuring that people, ideas, and resources are effectively synchronized to achieve sustainable success. Keva's innate focus on execution combined with her results-driven approach has established her as a formidable change agent within the organizations she has led. She thrives in environments that require innovative solutions, making her an invaluable asset to any team.
With a proven track record of leading start-up operations and guiding organizations through transitional phases, Keva has honed her skills in building high-performing teams, fostering collaboration, and enabling teams to reach their full potential. Her communication and facilitation skills allow her to build strong relationships, which are essential for driving engagement and fostering a culture of accountability and excellence. Keva's energetic and self-directed nature motivates her peers and team members to strive for continuous improvement and outstanding results.
Education and Achievements
Keva Walton holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she cultivated a deep understanding of governance, policy-making, and the intricacies of public sector management. Her academic foundation was further strengthened by her Bachelor's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from East Carolina University, equipping her with the analytical skills necessary to create effective urban policies and community strategies.
Throughout her career, Keva has occupied several prestigious positions, contributing significantly to each organization. As the Chief Executive Officer at the Mecklenburg County Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, she has influenced numerous initiatives that have positively impacted the community. Her role at the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance as the Chief Growth Officer allowed her to spearhead critical growth strategies, while her work as Senior Vice President of Member Engagement, Strategic Partnerships/Diversity at the same organization helped to cultivate relationships that are essential for economic development and community engagement.
Further, her experience as Vice President of Workforce Development at Goodwill Industries - Southern Piedmont highlights her commitment to improving workforce opportunities, ensuring that community members are equipped with the necessary skills for employment in evolving job markets. Keva's leadership as Executive Director of the Johnston Branch at the YMCA of Greater Charlotte provided her with a platform to enhance community services and programs aimed at overall wellness and development.
Keva’s tenure as Division Manager of Neighborhood Development at the City of Charlotte showcases her ability to navigate complex urban planning issues while aligning local government priorities with community needs. Her work has been impactful in reshaping neighborhoods and encouraging economic growth at the local level.
Skills and Strengths
Keva’s career is characterized by a set of standout skills and strengths that enhance her leadership capabilities and define her professional ethos. She is recognized as a creative and strategic visionary, always capable of seeing the broader organizational picture and identifying opportunities for growth and improvement.
- Collaborative Relationship Builder: Keva excels at fostering relationships across diverse groups, leveraging her interpersonal skills to create partnerships that lead to win-win outcomes.
- Diplomatic Communicator: With a knack for tactful communication, Keva is able to navigate complex discussions and foster dialogue among stakeholders.
- Motivated Self-Starter: Her high energy levels and self-directed nature enable her to remain focused on goals while displaying necessary flexibility in response to changing environments.
- Analytical and Innovative: Keva’s analytical mindset allows her to conceptualize and apply innovative technological solutions to various operational challenges.
- Results-Driven Change Agent: She has consistently demonstrated the capacity to drive change within organizations, leading teams through transitional periods with a focus on achieving measurable results.
- Exceptional Project Manager: Keva's project management skills are evident in her ability to oversee multi-million dollar budgets and deliver projects on time and within scope. Her detail-oriented approach ensures that nothing falls through the cracks in the pursuit of excellence.
- Conversational German: Her ability to communicate in German adds to her skill set, allowing her to engage with broader networks and communities.
Notable Achievements
Keva Walton’s career is punctuated by numerous notable achievements that spotlight her commitment to community development, operational excellence, and leadership. Under her leadership as CEO of the Mecklenburg County Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, she implemented strategies that enhanced the regulation and service provision within the industry, reflecting her deep understanding of governance.
At the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, Keva’s leadership in establishing strategic partnerships has yielded substantial growth results for the organization. Her initiatives to diversify member engagement have opened avenues for wider community involvement, thereby enhancing the Alliance's impact.
In her role at Goodwill Industries, Keva played a pivotal role in workforce development programs that equipped countless individuals with essential job skills, significantly improving their employability. This accomplishment highlights her passion for community service and economic empowerment.
Moreover, her contributions as the Executive Director at the YMCA of Greater Charlotte helped these programs scale, promoting health and wellness in the community, while her influence at the City of Charlotte has left a lasting impact on urban development initiatives.
In summary, Keva Walton's impressive professional background, bolstered by a solid educational foundation and keen leadership abilities, positions her as a standout figure in community development and organizational management. Her enthusiasm for fostering collaboration, driving change, and achieving sustainable results underscores her dedication and effectiveness as a leader. With a focus on innovative solutions and a commitment to excellence, Keva continues to create significant positive impacts within her professional engagements.
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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.