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Lesley Williams
Chief Executive Officer at Tshimologong Precinct
Professional Background
Lesley Williams is a seasoned professional with over two decades of international experience specializing in process and dialogue facilitation, change management, innovation, and stakeholder engagement. Her rich career traverses various industries, including academia, mining, banking, animation, and energy. A significant highlight includes her role as a moderator for a dialogue on Nelson Mandela's legacy and the Future of Africa, where she facilitated a discussion between President Barack Obama and Graca Machel in Washington D.C. in 2019.
In her current role as the Chief Executive Officer of Wits University’s Tshimologong Precinct, Lesley is dedicated to promoting African digital innovation on a global scale. Under her leadership, the precinct has become a cornerstone for cultivating a vibrant ecosystem aimed at leveraging Africa's digital capacity for international markets. Lesley is also the founder of Lesley Donna Williams Consulting, where she applies her expertise to support organizations and initiatives focused on innovative solutions and meaningful impact.
Lesley’s passion for social change led her to create I AM AFRICA, a movement established in 2015 aimed at addressing xenophobia in South Africa. This initiative fosters dialogue among ordinary citizens to catalyze transformation across the continent.
Lesley has an extensive history of leadership in various organizations, contributing her expertise to the Africa Advisory Council of the Impact Hub Network, where she was instrumental in launching the first Impact Hub in Africa in Johannesburg. Her role in shaping this global network of innovation spaces demonstrates her commitment to empowering entrepreneurs and facilitating collaboration among diverse stakeholders.
Education and Achievements
In addition to her vibrant career, Lesley has amplified her influence through various prestigious platforms. In 2020, she became a TEDx speaker, sharing her insights and experiences with a wider audience. Furthermore, she was a participant in the inaugural class of the Obama Foundation Leaders Program: Africa in 2018, where she collaborated with other emerging leaders from across the continent to tackle pressing community challenges. Her experience as a mentor for the 2019 cohort reflects her dedication to nurturing future leaders.
Lesley’s noteworthy accomplishments include being recognized with the 2018 InspiringFifty award, celebrating the most inspiring women in South Africa's STEM sectors. In 2015, she was honored with the Unashamedly Ethical Award in the Business Category, underscoring her commitment to ethical leadership. Additionally, her selection in 2011 as one of the Mail & Guardian's Top 200 Young South Africans highlights her early promise and continued impact in her field. In a remarkable testament to her passion for climate change, she was chosen as one of 60 young global leaders for the BP Antarctica Expedition in 2009.
Notable Roles
Lesley’s extensive professional journey includes roles that have shaped various organizations, especially in the entrepreneurial and social innovation sectors. Her position as the Chief Operating Officer at Tshimologong Precinct allowed her to hone the strategic vision for advancing digital innovation. She also served as a facilitator and mentor at the Obama Foundation, guiding aspiring leaders in their quests for social impact. As an associate consultant at the Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS), she provided strategic insights that fostered innovative practices.
Her involvement with significant organizations such as the Health Systems Trust and AIESEC reflects her commitment to capacity building and youth empowerment. Additionally, as a network developer with the Free Agent, she contributed to the proliferation of entrepreneurial networks across the region.
In every capacity she has served, Lesley’s ability to create common ground among corporates, governmental bodies, international development agencies, and entrepreneurs has been a defining feature of her career. Her efforts have not only contributed toward institutional advancements but also toward fostering community resilience and innovation.
Lesley's work exemplifies what it means to be a change agent in today's rapidly evolving global landscape. Her unwavering dedication to propelling African innovation, fostering dialogues for change, and nurturing emerging leaders showcases the profound impact one individual can have in driving societal transformation. As she continues to navigate the ever-changing landscapes of business and social enterprise, Lesley Williams remains a leading force in shaping a bright future for Africa.
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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:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- 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.
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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.