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Samantha Vogts
Director Client Relationship Management at Visa
Professional Background
Samantha Vogts is an accomplished communications professional with extensive experience in corporate and consumer public relations, as well as reputation and issues management. She has carved out a niche for herself in the highly competitive field of communications, demonstrating a unique blend of creativity and strategic thinking. Samantha currently holds the prestigious position of Director of Client Relationship Management at Visa, where she oversees initiatives that strengthen client partnerships and enhance business relationships. Her innovative approach in this role reflects her commitment to excellence and her deep understanding of public relations dynamics.
Prior to her current position, Samantha served as the Acting Head of Corporate Communications for Visa in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. During her tenure, she played a pivotal role in managing corporate reputation and navigating complex communications challenges across these diverse regions. Her leadership and strategic insight were instrumental in developing and executing communication strategies that resonated with stakeholders and contributed to Visa's positive public image.
In her previous roles, Samantha worked as the Director of Corporate Communications for Visa, also overseeing communications strategies across Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. She excelled in managing issues management processes and reputation management strategies that proved effective in elevating Visa’s corporate narrative.
Before joining Visa, Samantha held noteworthy positions at top-tier communication firms, including Edelman and Ogilvy Public Relations, where she served as Account Director. In these roles, she was responsible for leading multi-faceted public relations campaigns and managing client relationships that significantly contributed to brand visibility and engagement.
Her career also includes a stint as Senior Consultant at Gong Communications, where she honed her skills in strategic communications planning and execution. Additionally, her experience as a Consultant at Pagefield and Baldwin Boyle Group further broadened her expertise in various sectors of communications, allowing her to provide insightful guidance to her clients.
Beginning her professional journey as an Intern and Part-time Consultant at Professional Public Relations and JML Communications, Samantha's early experiences laid a robust foundation for her career in communications. Through these initial roles, she gained valuable insights into the complexities of public relations and media management, which have been crucial to her success in the industry.
Education and Achievements
Samantha Vogts is a proud alumna of Auckland University of Technology, where she earned her Bachelor of Communication Studies with a major in Public Relations and a minor in Creative Industries. This academic background has equipped her with a solid understanding of communication theories and practices, enabling her to excel in various roles throughout her career.
Her proactive approach to personal and professional development is exemplified by her wide-ranging portfolio of experiences across diverse communication environments. Samantha's educational foundation in public relations empowers her with the necessary skills to navigate the challenges and opportunities in the communication landscape effectively. Her practical knowledge, combined with her academic training, allows her to craft compelling messages and engage a variety of target audiences.
Throughout her career, Samantha has consistently demonstrated her expertise in strategic communication, reputation management, and relationship building. Her ability to develop thoughtful strategies and execute them effectively has made a profound impact, ensuring visibility and credibility for the brands she represents.
Samantha is not just a communications professional; she is a passionate advocate for effective dialogue and collaboration, believing that communication is the cornerstone of all successful relationships in both personal and professional contexts. She is dedicated to helping her clients navigate the ever-changing landscape of public opinion and media relations, ensuring their messages are heard clearly and effectively.
Achievements
In her roles at Visa, Samantha has been instrumental in leading successful campaigns that have garnered positive attention and strengthened the organization's reputation in the public domain. Her involvement in key projects has consistently showcased her talents and dedication to excellence.
Samantha's leadership style emphasizes teamwork, creativity, and strategic foresight. As such, she has fostered environments where ideas thrive, allowing her teams to deliver outstanding results for their clients. Her approach to client relationship management is characterized by a deep understanding of stakeholder needs and the seamless integration of creative solutions to address communication challenges.
Her work across various sectors of the public relations landscape has not only benefited her clients but has also positioned her as a respected thought leader in the communications field. Samantha's insights into effective communication strategies, particularly in crisis management and brand reputation, have made significant contributions to the industry.
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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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- 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.
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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.