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Laura McLaughlin
Founder and Principal at Morrigan HR Consulting
Professional Background
Laura McLaughlin is a seasoned Global Human Resources and Talent Management leader with over two decades of diverse experience across multiple industries including finance, sports, hospitality, and consulting. Her career is characterized by a relentless commitment to building robust HR functions that not only meet but exceed the evolving needs of the organizations she serves.
Throughout her impressive career, Laura has held several key positions in prominent organizations, showcasing her exceptional abilities in driving strategy, coaching executives, and crafting innovative talent solutions. Notably, she has served as the Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at LEGACY Global Sports, and previously as Vice President and Senior Talent Advisor at Liberty Mutual Insurance, where she played a crucial role in enhancing employee engagement and leading complex business transformations.
In her current role as the Founder and Principal at Morrigan HR Consulting, Laura brings a wealth of experience to help companies optimize their human resources operations and create strategies that allow employees to thrive. She passionately believes that using technology to deliver HR services can clear the way for employees to perform at their best, creating long-term benefits for both individuals and the organization as a whole.
Education and Achievements
Laura’s educational background provides a strong foundation for her successful career in human resources and talent management. She holds a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) with a concentration in Organizational Leadership from Simmons College - Simmons School of Management. This advanced degree has equipped her with advanced strategic management skills that she applies in her HR leadership roles.
Additionally, Laura studied Marketing and Advertising at Emerson College, which has further enriched her understanding of the intersection between human resources and effective marketing strategies. Her Bachelor of Arts in French and International Affairs from Florida State University adds another dimension to her expertise, allowing her to manage diverse teams and understand international workplace dynamics effectively. She's also continued her professional development through various programs at The George Washington University School of Business, enhancing her leadership capabilities.
Throughout her career, Laura has achieved numerous accolades, including awards for her innovative approaches to leadership development programs during her tenure at Liberty Mutual Insurance. As the Director of Leadership Development Programs, she pioneered several initiatives aimed at nurturing young talent, ensuring that the organization remains competitive in an ever-evolving market.
Notable Career Roles
a In her role as the Head of Human Resources at TA Realty, Laura was instrumental in revamping the HR function, aligning it more closely with the overall business strategy. Her leadership in this capacity helped streamline recruitment processes and enhance organizational culture, contributing significantly to the overall growth of the company.
The breadth of Laura's career reflects a commitment to professional excellence and a passion for developing talent. From her early position as a Marketing & PR professional at Hyatt Regency Boston to her multifaceted roles at Liberty Mutual Insurance, Laura has continually embraced new challenges, demonstrating adaptability and leadership at every step.
Her journey is also marked by her initial experience as an Executive Assistant at Park Hyatt Washington D.C., where she began to hone her organizational and communication skills. Additionally, her early internship at the American Embassy in London provided Laura with invaluable cross-cultural understanding, which she has leveraged throughout her extensive career in HR.
Achievements
Laura McLaughlin's career is distinguished by her ability to handle complex HR challenges and deliver impactful solutions that enable organizations to achieve their strategic goals. Among her many achievements, she has:
- Established effective human resources strategies at LEGACY Global Sports that enhanced employee retention and engagement.
- Developed and executed comprehensive talent management processes at Liberty Mutual Insurance, nurturing leaders and high-potential employees.
- Founded Morrigan HR Consulting, where she utilizes her wealth of HR knowledge and expertise to help companies thrive and foster equitable workplaces.
- Recognized for her contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts within the organizations she has served.
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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:
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- 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.