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Nicklas Funk
Sustainability Engineer at Ambu - Circular Product & Packaging Design - Sustainable Innovation - Design thinking - Medtech 🌍
Professional Background
Nicklas Funk is a dynamic professional whose career is distinguished by his commitment to facilitating innovation through strategic sustainability within corporate entrepreneurial environments. With a strong focus on combining design thinking and system design, Nicklas is passionate about promoting a circular economy and eco-design approaches. He excels in inspiring and implementing transformative changes in product design and packaging, proving that sustainability can seamlessly integrate into business strategies. Nicklas currently serves as a Sustainability Engineer specializing in Global Innovation at Ambu A/S, where he plays a crucial role in developing sustainable solutions for healthcare products that positively impact both the environment and the end-user.
Nicklas has amassed a wealth of experience in the fields of sustainability and design innovation. His previous roles include scientific assistant positions at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he contributed to projects focusing on sustainability, product-service systems (PSS), and circular economy initiatives. During his tenure at DTU, he was involved in the Climate-KIC project, collaborating with partners like Riversimple and ENSO Tyres, further enhancing his expertise in eco-design and sustainability practices.
Through diverse roles spanning across academia and industry, Nicklas has demonstrated his ability to engage in analytical thinking and complex problem-solving. His technical understanding of design thinking methodologies enables him to set ambitious goals while skillfully navigating the strategic landscape necessary to accomplish them.
Education and Achievements
Nicklas Funk's educational background lays a solid foundation for his professional journey. He began his academic pursuit at Gladsaxe Gymnasium, where he studied fundamental subjects including Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Sports, showcasing his well-rounded commitment to learning. This general education prepared him for his subsequent studies at Danmarks Tekniske Universitet.
At DTU, Nicklas earnestly pursued a Bachelor of Science in Design and Innovation, followed by a Master of Science in the same field. These degrees equipped him with essential skills in design thinking, innovation strategies, and sustainability, which he applies in real-world scenarios. His academic achievements reflect not only his dedication to the field but also his innovative spirit, which is evident through various collaborative projects and consulting experiences.
Notable Experiences
Throughout his career, Nicklas has taken on various roles that have shaped his perspective as a professional committed to sustainability and innovation:
- Master Thesis + Design Consultant at Steelcase: Here, he collaborated with a leading office furniture company to integrate sustainable practices into their design processes and product offerings.
- Design Intern at Oticon: Nicklas gained hands-on experience in design thinking and product innovation, contributing to enhancing hearing solutions that favor user-friendly experiences.
- Student Assistant Roles at Oticon: In these positions, he provided support in training and online learning within sales and marketing, further enhancing his skill set in customer engagement and educational design.
- Comprehensive Involvement at DTU: Nicklas's early involvement as a student assistant in Ecodesign and Engineering Design & Product Development made crucial contributions toward advancing sustainable practices at the university.
- Service Roles: Earlier in his career, he gained valuable customer service experience as a waiter and cafe worker, honing his interpersonal skills and understanding customer needs.
Personal Attributes
Nicklas is often described by colleagues and acquaintances as a curious, agile, and composed individual. His ability to adapt to new situations and maintain a composed demeanor while tackling challenging projects sets him apart in his field. Moreover, those who work with him often highlight his empathetic nature, which enables him to connect with people at all levels, facilitating collaboration and teamwork.
His analytical capabilities and ambitious approach foster a culture of innovation and strategic thinking within workplaces. Nicklas strongly believes in employing a back-casting strategy, where he envisions ambitious endpoints or 'moon shots' and works backward to outline actionable steps required to achieve them.
As he continually seeks to balance business objectives with product and service development goals, Nicklas Funk stands out as a leader in driving sustainable innovation in corporate settings. His enthusiasm for sustainability, design, and entrepreneurial spirit make him not only a vital asset to any organization but also a mentor and resource for others aspiring to make a meaningful impact in their fields.
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Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
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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- 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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