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Polly Thomas
President, CBIZ Benefits and Insurance
Professional Background
Polly Thomas is an accomplished leader with extensive experience in the employee benefits sector, currently serving as the President of CBIZ's Kansas City Employee Benefits Division. In her role, Polly has successfully overseen critical business operations, focusing on overall growth and profitability of the unit. She emphasizes associate development and retention, recognizing that a motivated team is essential for sustainable success. Polly's commitment to client retention further highlights her strategic approach—ensuring that client needs are met through innovative benefits solutions and superior service.
Polly's professional journey showcases her strong expertise in numerous specialties, particularly in strategic planning and employee engagement—critical components for cultivating a positive corporate culture. With a keen understanding of cost containment strategies, self-funding mechanisms, wellness programming, and incentive & reward design, Polly effectively navigates the complexities of employee benefits. Her leadership not only drives business outcomes but also fosters a workplace that values employee recognition and health.
Education and Achievements
Polly's academic background laid the foundation for her successful career. She studied Physical Therapy at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she gained an understanding of health and wellness that informs her approach to employee benefits. This educational experience provides Polly with a unique perspective on the intersection of health and employee engagement, allowing her to craft solutions that address the well-being of employees holistically.
Throughout her career, Polly has held several significant positions that have bolstered her reputation as a thought leader in the field. Notably, she has served as Chair of the Board of Directors at the Wyandotte Community Health Center, demonstrating her commitment to community health initiatives. Additionally, her role in the Executive Women's Leadership Council at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce underscores her dedication to advancing women in leadership roles.
Her past experiences include serving as a Board Member at the Turner House Children's Clinic, where she contributed to strategic public health initiatives. Polly's tenure as Director of Onsite Clinic Consulting and Employee Benefits Consultant at CBIZ allowed her to sharpen her skills in employee benefits, while her previous position as Sr. Manager Clinical Adoption at Cerner Corporation provided her with invaluable insights into healthcare technology and its application within employee wellness frameworks.
Achievements
Polly Thomas has a wealth of achievements that reflect her expertise and commitment to improving employee benefits. Under her leadership at CBIZ, she has spearheaded initiatives that have transformed the way organizations approach employee engagement. Her vision for wellness programming has not only reduced healthcare costs for businesses but also enhanced the overall employee experience.
In recognition of her efforts, Polly has become a sought-after speaker at industry conferences, sharing insights on effective corporate culture, strategic planning, and the importance of adaptable employee benefits programs. Her influential work in these areas positions her as a key figure in the employee benefits landscape, where she continues to advocate for innovative solutions that prioritize the health and well-being of employees.
With a focus on fostering growth and sustainability, Polly is poised to leave a lasting impact on the Kansas City business community and beyond. Her passion for advocacy in employee benefits and corporate wellness ensures that she remains a key player in shaping the future of organizational health and employee satisfaction.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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'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.
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