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Saskia Epstein
Vice President, Client and Community Relations at PNC Bank
Professional Background
Saskia Epstein is a distinguished leader in the realm of corporate citizenship and philanthropy, with a robust career spanning various leadership roles across multiple organizations. Currently, Saskia serves as the Vice President of Client and Community Relations at PNC, where she excels in fostering strong relationships with clients and the community, engaged in initiatives that promote social responsibility and enrich community engagement. Her background is characterized by a deep commitment to enhancing societal impact through strategic planning and innovative programming.
Prior to her current role at PNC, Saskia co-founded Power Launch Philanthropy, where she also held the position of President on the Board of Directors. This organization focuses on launching philanthropic ventures that empower communities and promote sustainable solutions to pressing social issues. Saskia's leadership was instrumental in implementing strategic plans that broadened the organization’s outreach and impact.
Saskia's diverse experience also includes serving as Chief Executive Officer at Room to Grow, an organization dedicated to supporting families living in poverty, where she significantly advanced their mission through various successful initiatives. Her tenure included roles as Executive Director and Chief Strategist, allowing her to shape the organization's future direction while enhancing operational efficiency and community outreach.
Throughout her impressive career, Saskia has also held pivotal roles at The Home for Little Wanderers, where she advanced through various positions from Director of Milieu Services to Executive Director. Her deep understanding of program development and new initiatives has made her a key figure in shaping services that nurture and protect vulnerable children and families. Additionally, she has contributed to the development of future leaders through her involvement with organizations like Citizen Schools and City Year, where she played a crucial role in leadership development and program leadership.
Education and Achievements
Saskia's educational background reflects her commitment to leadership and community engagement. She studied for a Certificate in Corporate Citizenship Leadership at the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College Carroll School of Management, where she honed her skills in developing and executing corporate social responsibility strategies that yield meaningful community development. This program further solidified her expertise in managing corporate-community relations effectively.
Furthermore, she participated in the Young American Leaders Program through the U.S. Competitiveness Project at Harvard Business School Executive Education. This elite program equips leaders with the tools to foster competitiveness and innovation, further enhancing her capabilities in leadership and strategic planning.
In addition to her educational accomplishments, Saskia is known for her ability to innovate and lead impactful projects and initiatives that significantly contribute to community well-being. Her experience not only underscores her commitment to philanthropy but also exhibits a result-oriented approach in her professional endeavors—all aimed at fostering durable social change.
Notable Achievements
- As a Vice President at PNC, Saskia has developed and implemented initiatives aimed at strengthening client engagement and community relationships, which have further reinforced PNC's reputation as a socially responsible institution.
- During her time at Power Launch Philanthropy, she successfully led efforts to establish initiatives that address systemic poverty and facilitate personal and economic growth within underserved communities.
- Under her leadership as CEO at Room to Grow, the organization significantly expanded its programs aimed at transforming the lives of children and families living in poverty, demonstrating her exceptional ability to lead organizations towards achieving their missions.
- Saskia’s contributions as Executive Director at The Home for Little Wanderers established new program frameworks that improved service delivery and enhanced outcomes for children who are at risk.
- Her leadership roles at City Year and Citizen Schools reflect her dedication to education and youth development, where she nurtured talent and fostered leadership in young people, preparing the next generation of leaders.
Saskia Epstein's extensive background in community relations, program development, and leadership positions her as a valuable thought leader in corporate philanthropy and social impact initiatives. Her commitment to enhancing the lives of others through strategic philanthropic efforts serves as a testament to her passion for making a positive difference in society.
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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
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- 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.
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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.