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Leslie Kaplan
Co-Founder at The Piping Gourmets
Professional Background
Leslie Kaplan boasts an impressive career that spans over two decades in various leadership roles within the hospitality and project management sectors. Her professional journey began in the hospitality industry, where she quickly advanced her expertise and experience, leading to significant contributions across different enterprises.
From July 1988 to 1991, Leslie served as a Sales Manager at The Continental Companies, where she excelled as an on-site hotel sales manager in the rooms division. Her role involved not only managing hotel occupancy but also developing sales strategies that effectively captured the interest of potential guests, laying the groundwork for her outstanding career in operations and project management.
In 1994, Leslie transitioned to Transchemical Corp., a bulk petrochemical trading company focusing on project development within Eastern European countries. As a Project Manager, she dedicated approximately eleven years to this role, from August 1994 to June 2005. Here, Leslie showcased her remarkable ability to manage complex projects, balancing both client needs and operational challenges. Notably, her portfolio included assisting with the relocation of overseas partners and facilitating their immersion into local communities, which speaks to her exceptional interpersonal skills and dedication to client satisfaction.
Leslie's expertise continued to evolve when she became the Director of Operations for Carrousel Yacht and Great Bay Yacht Charters from June 2005 to October 2010. In this role, Leslie applied her hospitality management skills to oversee operations in the yachting sector, ensuring a high level of service and quality while managing day-to-day activities. Her leadership was instrumental in enhancing operational efficiency and customer satisfaction, traits that she has consistently brought to her ensuring success in every position she has held.
Education and Achievements
Leslie Kaplan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Hospitality Management from the esteemed Florida International University, graduating in 1988. Her educational foundation has greatly contributed to her successful career in both hospitality and operations management. Through her studies, she developed critical skills in strategic management, customer service, and operational excellence, which have proven essential throughout her professional journey.
Beyond her formal education, Leslie remains committed to continuous growth and learning. She leverages her profound knowledge and experience to drive success in every project she undertakes. Leslie is also co-founder of The Piping Gourmets, an initiative that reflects her passion for culinary arts and demonstrating her commitment to community engagement and advocacy. Her multifaceted skills in sales, management, and operations position her as a well-rounded professional capable of orchestrating successful business endeavors.
Notable Achievements
- Co-Founder of The Piping Gourmets: Leslie's entrepreneurial spirit is evident in her initiative to establish The Piping Gourmets, where she leverages her culinary passion and industry expertise to offer quality services.
- Proven Leadership in Various Roles: Leslie's time as Director of Operations at Carrousel Yacht and as a project manager at Transchemical Corp. showcases her adaptability and capability in leading diverse teams across highly competitive industries.
- Strong Community Involvement: By assisting overseas partners' immersion into local communities, Leslie has demonstrated a commitment to fostering cross-cultural relationships and ensuring successful transitions for international teams. Her approach to project management reflects a deep understanding of the human element in business.
Overall, Leslie Kaplan is a skilled professional whose extensive background in hospitality management and project operations has made significant impacts within her field. With a robust educational foundation and substantial hands-on experience, she continues to excel in her endeavors, becoming a recognized figure within the business community.
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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
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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 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.
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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.