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Lynnetta Smith
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging leader | Championing Inclusion | Co-Active Coach
Professional Background
Lynnetta Smith is an accomplished professional serving as the Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) at Pluralsight. In this pivotal role, she spearheads the vision and strategy for fostering a diverse and inclusive organizational culture where all employees feel a sense of belonging. With over 11 years of valuable experience in the computer software industry, Lynnetta has made significant contributions to DEIB initiatives that empower individuals and enhance workplace dynamics. Her extensive expertise lies in management, customer service, mentoring, and training, making her a formidable force in the realm of workplace culture transformation. Lynnetta has not only established herself as a leader in her current role but also has a rich history of impactful positions in various organizations, including Okta and LinkedIn.
Education and Achievements
Lynnetta's educational journey is marked by her commitment to personal and professional development. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) with a focus on Marketing from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Additionally, she has broadened her strategic skill set by completing a prestigious certificate in Strategy Execution from Harvard Business School Online. This blend of education equips her with a comprehensive understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of business strategy and execution, particularly in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Lynnetta's passion for empowering others is palpable in all her endeavors. She is particularly dedicated to training and mentoring emerging talent, ensuring they acquire the skills necessary to thrive in their careers. Over the years, she has received numerous awards and honors that recognize her outstanding contributions not only to DEIB but also to customer experience, highlighting her effectiveness in driving positive change.
Notable Career Trajectory
Lynnetta’s career is characterized by her ascent through various roles, reflecting her versatility and commitment to fostering inclusive work environments. She previously held the position of Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at Okta, where she laid the groundwork for impactful DEIB strategies. Before that, she was instrumental in shaping the diversity landscape at LinkedIn, serving in multiple roles including Senior Program Manager and ERG Program Manager for Global Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.
Her involvement at LinkedIn was particularly noteworthy; she was the co-chair and founder of the Black Inclusion Group, striving to ensure that underrepresented groups were not only recognized but supported and given a platform for their voices. This initiative exemplifies her commitment to solidarity and advocacy within corporate structures. Additionally, Lynnetta’s leadership extended into her role as Director of Global Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at ServiceNow, where she expanded innovative programs aimed at promoting inclusivity on a global scale.
Her career path reflects a deep-rooted passion for advancing equity and driving cultural change, making her a sought-after thought leader in DEIB discussions and practices.
Community Engagement and Leadership Roles
Throughout her impressive career, Lynnetta has not only led teams but also actively contributed to the development of policies and initiatives that champion diversity and inclusion. As a former board member of the DEI Board, Lynnetta has offered strategic direction and visibility to essential conversations surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workforce. Her roles in various capacities have equipped her with a diverse skill set that transcends simply meeting corporate DEIB metrics; she focuses on authentic engagement and the enhancement of workplace culture.
Lynnetta’s work exemplifies her belief in the power of empathy and understanding in the workplace. Her mentoring efforts have created pathways for numerous individuals to pursue their professional aspirations while instilling belief in the importance of diverse perspectives in decision-making processes.
Passion for Development and Empowerment
At the core of Lynnetta Smith's professional philosophy is a profound commitment to helping individuals unlock their potential. She believes that empowered employees contribute to a more innovative, dynamic, and successful organization. Recognizing the value of continuous learning, Lynnetta emphasizes the importance of skill development and career growth among her peers and subordinates alike.
Lynnetta’s approach is marked by a unique blend of analytical thinking and heartfelt mentorship, making her an approachable leader who fosters an environment of trust and collaboration. Her track record illustrates her commitment to making a lasting impact, not just within her organizations but also throughout the broader professional community.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Lynnetta Smith stands as a beacon of leadership in the fields of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Her impressive background, educational credentials, and significant contributions to various organizations speak volumes about her dedication to fostering inclusive workplaces where every individual is valued and empowered to succeed. With her wealth of experience and passion for fostering belonging, Lynnetta continues to shape the future of inclusive corporate culture, ensuring that everyone can thrive in their professional journeys.
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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
- 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.
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