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Rita Barkhodaee
Founder Shestainability - Helping female leaders in male dominated industries who wants to achieve a higher level of impact and influence - Chair LIEN ESSA
Professional Background
Rita Hausken Barkhodaee, PCC, is a distinguished figure in the leadership coaching and sustainability sectors, embodying a unique blend of expertise in energy leadership and entrepreneurship. As the Founder and CEO of shestainability, Rita has committed her career to empowering individuals and organizations through sustainable practices and innovative leadership strategies. Her robust career spans several high-profile roles that showcase her dedication to leadership development, particularly within women’s networks and organizations focused on energy and sustainability.
Throughout her career, Rita has demonstrated remarkable versatility. She began her professional journey in the energy sector, working as a Sales Director for both Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at Upstream, The International Oil & Gas Source. Her leadership capabilities were further evident when she took on the role of General Manager, where she honed her skills in sales, marketing, and strategy across diverse regions. With her extensive background in the oil and gas industry, Rita transitioned smoothly into leadership coaching, where her passion for nurturing talent and fostering collaborative efforts found its true calling.
Rita’s experience is not solely confined to coaching; she has made significant strides in mentorship roles, particularly as a Mentor at Professional Women's Network (PWN) Norway and as a Mentor for Techstars. These positions enabled her to champion women in the workplace and help budding entrepreneurs navigate the complexities of their journeys.
Education and Achievements
Rita’s educational background is as impressive as her professional history. She is an accomplished graduate of the iPEC Coaching program, where she studied to become an Energy Leadership Master Practitioner and Leadership Coach. This specialized training equips her with transformative skills to facilitate growth and organizational change. Additionally, Rita pursued her CPC in Leadership Coaching at the same institution, further solidifying her credentials in the coaching arena.
Her academic journey also includes studies at BI Norwegian Business School, where she focused on coaching and sales management, gaining valuable insights that have contributed to her success as a leader in both coaching and business development. Moreover, her creative edge was cultivated through her studies in design at Godalen, which enhance her ability to approach challenges and solutions with a unique perspective.
Rita's achievements extend beyond her educational credentials. As a former Chair of the Europe Community at Lean In Energy and later at Lean In Energy Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa, she played a pivotal role in fostering connections among professionals dedicated to advancing women in the energy sector. This leadership effort has positioned her as a key advocate for diversity and inclusivity within a traditionally male-dominated industry.
Notable Contributions
Her distinctive contributions to the coaching community include pivotal roles such as Strategist & Coach at Rita Hausken Leadership Strategist & Coach and as a mentor with Lean In Energy. Furthermore, her time at Bravely as a PRO coach allowed her to extend her reach in providing guidance and support to professionals facing career transitions and challenges.
Rita’s journey is marked by her unwavering commitment to personal and professional development for her clients. As the founder of shestainability, she not only emphasizes sustainability principles but also integrates these values into effective leadership coaching processes. She is dedicated to pursuing a vision where collaboration, strategy, and empowerment pave the way for dynamic leadership in various industries.
Through her multifaceted approach to coaching, mentorship, and leadership, Rita Hausken Barkhodaee continues to inspire individuals and organizations alike. Her extensive experience in sales and management within the energy sector, paired with her profound coaching expertise, marks her as a thought leader in her field and an influential force for future generations.
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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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- 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.
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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 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.
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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.