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Rene Lamade
Early Retirement - Social Activist
Professional Background
Rene Lamade stands out as a notable leader in the field of product management and user experience design at SAP, a global powerhouse in enterprise software solutions. Throughout his extensive career, Rene has held several pivotal roles that have been instrumental in shaping SAP's user-centric approach to technology and innovation. His journey with SAP has been marked by rich experiences and a strong commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration. Rene has consistently engaged with colleagues, customers, and partners, finding motivation and inspiration from these interactions. This collaborative spirit has driven him to embrace every opportunity across his varied roles, ensuring that each new position was a chance to learn and grow.
As a Product Owner for Microservices, Rene has spearheaded initiatives in key technological areas like S4Hana and the Internet of Things (IoT). His strategic vision in managing cross-functional topics including security and user experience (UX) has positioned SAP to tackle the rapidly evolving demands of digital marketplaces. In his capacity as a Program Lead for some of SAP's largest initiatives, Rene has demonstrated his adeptness in steering teams towards the successful execution of innovative projects. His background in economics and IT provides him with a strong foundation to lead discussions at board-level, ensuring that decisions are data-driven and aligned with business goals.
One of the most significant milestones in Rene's career has been his fruitful collaboration with Apple. This partnership is set to revolutionize the user experience for SAP customers by introducing groundbreaking native mobile applications and a supporting Software Development Kit (SDK) tailored for custom development. Furthermore, Rene has been a catalyst in establishing an academy designed to enhance the skill sets of interested individuals in the tech community, ensuring that knowledge and tools are accessible for all.
Education and Achievements
Rene Lamade's educational background is rooted in his studies at Duale Hochschule Mannheim, where he earned his Diplom in Economics and IT. This combination of disciplines has not only equipped him with technical acumen but also a keen understanding of the business landscape, which is essential for making informed strategic decisions.
Throughout his career at SAP, Rene has held various prestigious positions, showcasing a wealth of experience that spans product management, development, and user experience design. His roles include:
- Former Head of Product Management & Design in SAP User Experience – Leading the design and management of user-centric products that align with the needs of customers.
- Vice President for Development of Business Services & Mobile Apps – Overseeing the development of mobile applications that leverage SAP’s robust software capabilities.
- Product Owner for User Experience with a focus on S/4 Hana – Driving initiatives that enhance the usability of SAP’s next-generation ERP suite, ensuring optimal user experiences across various fields.
- Development Program Director and Vice President for SAP Suite – Directing development efforts and guiding teams towards successful outcomes.
His leadership capabilities extend beyond his primary roles; Rene is renowned for his people management skills, successfully guiding large organizations and teams toward shared objectives. He is skilled in preparing decisions at the board level, fostering a culture of open communication and innovation among colleagues and partners.
Notable Achievements
Rene has made remarkable strides in several key areas throughout his tenure at SAP. His contributions to usability and user experience in the OP Suite have been particularly noteworthy. Over the last three years, he has significantly improved the perception and functionality of user experiences with products such as SAP Screen Personas and FIORI. These enhancements have benefitted customers by making existing SAP offerings more intuitive and easier to navigate.
Rene's vision and drive can be observed in the context of the Internet of Things and big data. He has embraced the need for data analysis in managing devices, advocating for predictive algorithms from Hana DB that can optimize business processes. An example of this innovative thinking is the insight that device vibration data can predict necessary maintenance periods, providing businesses with timely information to maintain operational efficiency.
Additionally, his role as a social activist through the Early Retirement initiative at SAP showcases his commitment to making a difference beyond the business realm. Rene believes in empowering the community and fostering social responsibility, which adds a unique dimension to his professional persona.
Conclusion
In summary, Rene Lamade is a distinguished and accomplished professional whose career at SAP illustrates his dedication, expertise, and passion for enhancing user experiences and driving technological innovation. With a profound understanding of mobile technology, user-centric design, and strategic leadership, Rene is poised to continue making significant contributions to the tech world. His collaborative spirit and commitment to learning make him a valuable asset to any team, and his vision for the future promises to deliver impactful advances that benefit both customers and the broader tech community.
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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
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- 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.