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Matt Auer
20+ Years Leading Product Management and User Experience Design
Professional Background
Matthew J. Auer is a distinguished leader in the digital product landscape, renowned for his innovative approaches and impactful strategies that elevate user experiences. With over 20 years of extensive experience in User Experience Design, Product Management, and Marketing, Matthew’s career trajectory showcases a series of influential roles that have shaped the digital strategies of some of the most prominent brands in the industry. Currently, he serves as a Senior Digital Product Leader at Tapestry, a luxury conglomerate that encompasses revered brands such as Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. In this role, Matthew continues to drive the creation, testing, and optimization of premier digital products aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement.
Prior to his tenure at Tapestry, Matthew was the Vice President and Head of Digital at OppenheimerFunds from 2014 to 2019. He played a pivotal role in transforming the digital marketing organization into a highly regarded, customer-centric powerhouse. His leadership resulted in the establishment of top-tier Product and UX Design teams, implementing a data-driven mindset and fostering a culture of creative problem-solving that leveraged customer insights through extensive user research and A/B testing processes. His efforts earned notice in the industry, positioning OppenheimerFunds as a leader in digital marketing excellence.
Matthew’s professional journey includes significant contributions to American Express, where he successfully built a global User Experience Design team from the ground up. His leadership in Product Management was instrumental in reversing declining customer satisfaction and improving Net Promoter Scores (NPS), ultimately winning accolades such as the prestigious JD Power award. Under his guidance, American Express effectively redefined its marketing approach towards Cardmembers across digital customer journeys.
Education and Achievements
Matthew holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Arizona State University, a foundation that has allowed him to blend strategic marketing principles with digital innovation. His academic background complements his extensive hands-on experience in the digital product space.
His achievements span a variety of aspects within the digital product management sphere. From eCommerce replatforming to digital strategy implementation, and from cultivating a user experience vision to executing usability testing and research, Matthew has demonstrated proficiency in a range of critical areas. He has notably excelled in executing digital marketing techniques, including A/B testing, SEO optimization, and management of ad campaigns.
Additionally, Matthew possesses a keen ability to capture customer insights through various metrics such as NPS, CSAT, and direct customer feedback. His technical skills extend into front-end engineering, with expertise in technologies like CSS, JavaScript libraries, and HTML5. This technical acumen allows him to communicate effectively across teams, leading initiatives that bridge the gap between design, engineering, and business objectives.
Notable Leadership Roles
In addition to his current position, Matthew has held various leadership positions throughout his career that reflect his versatile skill set and dedication to advancing digital product management. His role as the Vice President of Client Experience at American Century Investments highlights his commitment to enhancing client interactions through superior digital experiences. Previously, he served as the Senior Director of Global Product Management at Tapestry and held multiple roles across various capacities at American Express, including:
- Director of User Experience Design & Innovation
- Director of Digital Product Management & User Experience
- Senior Manager of Digital Product Management (Customer Loyalty)
- Director of E-Commerce Website Engineering & Design at Register.com
- Web Designer and Producer roles at GORP.com and Infinet Internet Solutions
Achievements
Throughout his prolific career, Matthew has recorded several notable achievements that underscore his leadership capabilities and deep understanding of the digital landscape. These include:
- Driving a cultural transformation at OppenheimerFunds that led to the organization being recognized as a best-in-class digital marketing powerhouse.
- Successfully establishing a comprehensive global User Experience Design team at American Express that became pivotal in redefining customer engagement strategies.
- Achieving significant improvements in customer satisfaction metrics, culminating in industry acclaim and awards, including GD Power recognition.
- Masterfully leading the integration of user research, A/B testing, and data-driven decision-making processes that significantly enhanced product launches and post-launch performance indicators (KPIs).
- Spearheading innovative strategies in eCommerce replatforming that led to improved user experiences and increased conversion rates.
In essence, Matthew J. Auer represents a hallmark of leadership in the realm of digital product management. His wealth of experience, coupled with his dedication to creating customer-driven solutions, has not only benefited the organizations he has worked with but has also set benchmarks within the industry as a whole. Matthew continues to inspire those around him as he leads the charge in redefining how digital products are created and optimized for exceptional customer experiences.
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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
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.