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Mariam Mannan
Regional HR Director Middle East at Amazon
Professional Background
Mariam Mannan is a seasoned HR leader and executive coach with a rich and diverse career spanning over a decade across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Known for her strategic vision and hands-on approach, Mariam has built a reputation for excellence in organizational development and transformations. Her ability to navigate complex people dynamics and implement effective talent development strategies has made her a pivotal figure in multiple successful organizations. Her leadership experience encompasses a variety of roles, with substantial achievements in driving mergers, acquisitions, and organizational integrations, showcasing her expertise in people analytics and technological transformations.
As the Regional HR Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amazon, Mariam has been instrumental in shaping the company’s human capital strategies in this vibrant region. Her prior positions include Group Regional HR Director at Souq.com and HR Manager at Microsoft for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Near East (NENA), where she leveraged her deep understanding of local contexts to foster robust talent pipelines and enhance organizational effectiveness. Mariam’s career is marked by her passion for fostering start-up and entrepreneurial initiatives, blending her extensive HR knowledge with a proactive approach to scaling organizations successfully.
Mariam enjoys partnering with HR and business teams in diverse, multi-cultural, and matrix-based organizations, consistently driving impactful and high-energy projects. Whether designing or implementing strategic programs, her focus remains on driving talent development and nurturing high-performance cultures. With a passion for coaching and mentoring, she has had a considerable impact on executive leadership development, helping leaders navigate change management effectively while achieving personal and professional growth.
Education and Achievements
Mariam’s educational background is as impressive as her career. She holds an MBA in HR and Marketing from the prestigious Lahore University of Management Sciences, which provides her with a solid foundation in business principles and practices. She also earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in International Business and Marketing from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), equipping her with a comprehensive understanding of global market dynamics.
Throughout her career, Mariam has consistently demonstrated an ability to align people strategies with organizational goals. Her strong analytical and problem-solving skills have underpinned her success in high-stakes environments. She is known for setting high-performance standards, both for herself and others, and is remarkable for her capacity to deliver results. Her focus on building strong, cohesive people teams creates a distinctive employee experience characterized by energy, accountability, and a commitment to human capital excellence.
Notable Achievements
Mariam’s track record is filled with noteworthy achievements:
- In her role at Amazon, she led transformative people strategies that have helped streamline HR operations while enhancing organizational culture and employee engagement levels across the region.
- At Souq.com, she played a key role in the company’s HR policies and talent development initiatives during a critical growth phase, contributing to its reputation as a leading marketplace in the Middle East.
- Mariam’s tenure at Microsoft involved innovative HR practices that successfully aligned workforce capabilities with rapid business advancements in technology and digital transformation.
- Her contributions to Nokia spanned various roles where she provided strategic HR consultancy across the Middle East and Africa, showcasing her adaptability and expertise in understanding regional nuances.
- Beyond her corporate achievements, Mariam is dedicated to nurturing the next generation of leaders. Her advanced coaching skills in career development have positively impacted many emerging professionals looking to thrive in the competitive landscape of the MENA region.
Mariam’s career trajectory epitomizes the ideal blend of strategic insight, operational excellence, and a firm commitment to people development. As she continues to expand her influence at the intersection of HR leadership and business strategy, she remains a key player in shaping the future of HR practices in a dynamic and diverse region.
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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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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- 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.
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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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