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Samantha Evans
Building successful tech ecosystems | Scaling the worlds best tech companies | Connecting global expertise
Professional Background
Sam Evans is a distinguished expert in international business development with an impressive track record in fostering growth for technology startups and scaleups across the globe. With over a decade of enriching experience gained from diverse markets in the USA, UK, and Asia, Sam is a master relationship builder, known for her strategic insights into the intricacies of international trade and expansion. Currently serving as the Head of International at Tech Nation, Sam has spearheaded the establishment of a new division within the organization, successfully scaling their operations into four overseas markets: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia. In just the first year, she has assisted more than 200 UK companies in their journey towards international success, leveraging her commercial acumen to enhance access to customers, capital, and talent.
In addition to her pivotal role at Tech Nation, Sam plays a crucial part in advancing the UK tech ecosystem. Her mission is centered around simplifying the access to overseas opportunities for UK tech firms, ensuring they are well-equipped to thrive in international markets. With an aspiration to replicate this model of growth in additional regions including the US, UAE, and EU by early 2022, her efforts are geared toward making the global playing field more accessible for British innovators.
Alongside her leadership at Tech Nation, Sam contributes her expertise to the UK Government’s Trade Advisory Group for Technology and Telecoms. In this capacity, she advocates for high-growth tech companies, amplifying their voices in crucial trade negotiations. Additionally, she serves on the UK Government's Digital Trade Network Board in the Asia-Pacific region, further exemplifying her commitment to the development of international trade frameworks that support technology sectors.
Education and Achievements
Sam’s academic foundation is rooted in a rich understanding of social frameworks and human behavior. She studied Sociology and Criminology for her bachelor’s degree at the University of Keele, which equipped her with analytical skills and insights into societal structures, valuable in her role in commercial strategy and international business relations. She further honed her academic pursuits by obtaining a Postgraduate degree in Social Anthropology from The University of Manchester, delving deeper into cultural dynamics and their impacts on market behaviors.
Throughout her illustrious career, Sam has held several significant positions, which have helped shape her into the thought leader she is today. Her former roles include Commercial & International Growth Consultant at International Growth & Strategic Relationship Consultant, Commercial Advisor at The Briars Group, and VP of Strategy & Business Development - West Coast, US at Osborne Clarke. Each position has expanded her understanding of different business environments, further augmenting her capabilities in fostering international partnerships.
Additionally, Sam's contributions to strategic development extend to her tenure as Founding Board Member at GBx, where she helped prepared and executed plans for growth and development in the digital space. Her leadership experience continued to evolve as she took on various roles at the Department for International Trade (DIT), including as Interim Head of Trade Services in the USA and interim roles focusing on investment and trade in San Francisco. Her experience at DIT has been a tremendous asset, providing her with firsthand insights into government initiatives and international market strategies.
In earlier stages of her career, Sam served as the International Business Development Consultant for Creative Digital and Media at MIDAS, Manchester's investment and development agency, and as Business Development & Partnerships Manager at The Sharp Project. These roles further solidified her passion for innovation, partnership building, and strategic growth initiatives in the technology sector. The foundation laid during her time in recruitment as a consultant at Venn Group established her thorough knowledge of organizational behavior and relationship management, critical elements in her current expertise.
Achievements
Sam's contributions to the tech community and her impact on international business development are noteworthy and speak volumes about her commitment to fostering growth and empowering others. Her achievements not only shine in terms of numerical success but also reflect a dedication to building sustainable pathways for success for tech entrepreneurs. Under her leadership, the division at Tech Nation has not only expanded into diverse international markets but has also actively engaged with UK tech companies, providing them access to essential resources and networks necessary for global operations.
Her role at the UK Government’s Trade Advisory Group signifies her prominent voice in advocating for the needs of the technology sector, ensuring that their challenges and opportunities are addressed in governmental strategies. Sam's insights contribute significantly to shaping policies that benefit high-growth tech companies within the UK.
Outside of her professional accomplishments, Sam's roots in Manchester influence her charismatic approach to relationship building and her ability to connect with individuals from varied backgrounds. Living in London with her beloved dog Chester, she continues to foster her passion for community involvement, representing a new generation of leaders who prioritize collaboration and inclusivity within the tech industry.
In summary, Sam Evans is an inspiring figure in the realm of international business development with a strong focus on helping tech startups and scaleups thrive globally. Her formidable experience spanning years across multiple countries, coupled with her deep understanding of the technology ecosystem, positions her as a unique leader dedicated to fostering growth within the UK tech sector and beyond.
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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.
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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.