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Mark Kimber
Strategic Customer Success Manager at Celonis
Professional Background
Mark Kimber is a highly experienced professional with an extensive career in consultancy and end-user environments, notably across several industry sectors including Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, and Manufacturing. He brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to his role, particularly in the area of governance within fast-paced, challenging scenarios. Mark has a reputation for being a creative, hard-working, and enthusiastic team player, which reflects his developmental and empowering management style.
Mark's adaptability across various technology landscapes has been a cornerstone of his professional journey. He thrives on addressing complex challenges with a pragmatic, goal-driven approach, which not only fosters productivity among teams but also drives successful results for projects and initiatives. His background in both the consultancy and end user environments equips him with a comprehensive understanding of the nuances and requirements of different industries.
Education and Achievements
Mark’s academic foundation is solid and diverse. He began his educational journey at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form in Darlington, where he studied A Levels in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry. Following this, he attended Acklam Hall School in Middlesbrough to complete his GCE before pursuing higher education. Mark earned a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Materials Science and Technology from the University of Bradford, laying the groundwork for his technical acumen.
Building on his undergraduate education, Mark advanced to obtain a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, specializing in Rule-Based Systems and Knowledge Engineering, also from the University of Bradford. This emphasis on computing and artificial intelligence illustrates Mark's commitment to staying at the forefront of technological innovations and solutions, further enhancing his capability to play a critical role in various sectors.
Career Journey
Mark currently serves as a Customer Value Manager at Celonis, where he applies his extensive expertise in business process management and analytics, ensuring clients receive significant value from their implementations. His previous roles include a notable tenure as Director at VirtusaPolaris, where he oversaw large-scale projects and strategies that significantly improved client outcomes.
Prior to this, Mark held the position of Programme Director for Banking Analytics and Risk at FICO. His leadership here was instrumental in the deployment of advanced analytics processes, ensuring that financial institutions could navigate risks effectively while maximizing their operational efficiencies. Mark also has considerable experience within Cognizant Technology Solutions, where he progressed through various titles including Associate Director of BPM for Media & Entertainment and Programme Manager for BPM and CRM in Financial Services. His time at Cognizant honed his skills in business process management across different sectors, illustrating his versatility and adaptability.
Before transitioning into these high-level strategic roles, Mark began his career journey as a Senior Delivery Lead at The Carphone Warehouse and has held several positions in the consulting field, including Data Services Manager at Beechwood House Publishing and Process Manager for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Mark's early career experiences laid the vital groundwork for his current focus on business transformation and innovation, having occupied versatile roles that contributed to his understanding of technology integration and client management.
Mark’s role as Business Transformation Manager at Business Systems Group / The Brilliant Agency showcases his capability in driving systemic changes that propel client organizations to new heights, ensuring that they remain competitive in a rapidly evolving marketplace. His comprehensive experience bridges both operational and strategic aspects of project management, enabling organizations to streamline processes and embrace technological advancements with ease.
Notable Contributions
Throughout his career, Mark has demonstrated a consistent ability to bring governance and vigor into challenging situations, creating a disciplined approach to project management and delivery. This has been especially evident in fast-moving sectors such as Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals, where regulatory pressures and rapidly changing market dynamics demand a strong, adaptable leadership presence.
In addition to his formal roles, Mark is an advocate for continuous learning and growth within teams, encouraging a culture where creativity and empowerment are paramount. His developmental approach signifies an investment in people, fostering an environment where team members can thrive and contribute significantly to overarching business objectives.
In summary, Mark Kimber's combined expertise across consultancy, project management, and technology integration positions him as a valuable asset to any organization. His educational background, marked by advanced degrees in Computer Science and a strong foundation in Materials Science, coupled with a robust career history in various leadership roles, underscores his capability to make meaningful contributions in today’s dynamic business landscapes.
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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
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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.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
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.