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Saunak Saha
Associate Partner, EY
Professional Background
Saunak Saha is a highly accomplished advisory professional with an impressive 16 years of management consulting experience, particularly in the energy sector. He has demonstrated his expertise across diverse areas, including energy policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy strategy, energy analytics, climate change, and sustainability. His extensive consulting career has involved advising numerous government and private sector clients, focusing on performance assessment, benchmarking, gap analysis, process risks and control mechanisms, and creating detailed performance improvement roadmaps with well-defined performance metrics.
In his role, Saunak has actively collaborated with bilateral and multilateral donor organizations such as The World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GiZ), and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). This rich experience has been pivotal in shaping energy policies and implementing benchmarking initiatives and greenhouse gas (GHG) inventorying strategies.
Saunak’s contributions to the Power and Utility sector have been particularly noteworthy, where he has played a crucial role in developing innovative solutions aimed at performance improvement through advanced data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT). His consulting work spans multiple industries, including iron and steel, cement, and both conventional and renewable power sectors. His international exposure is extensive, having led projects in various countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Russia, Ethiopia, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka.
Throughout his career, Saunak has been focused on end-to-end business consulting, demonstrating his proficiency in:
- Account mapping and strategic planning for identifying business opportunities
- Mobilization of sales force and crafting effective marketing materials
- Client acquisition and retention, particularly through cultivating robust relationships with CXOs of key accounts
- Conducting due diligence to mitigate organizational risks
- Overseeing project budgeting and engagement economics
- Planning engagements and optimizing resource utilization
- Developing new business solutions tailored to client needs
- Mentoring team members to deliver high-quality solutions
- Creating thought leadership materials and representing organizations effectively in the marketplace
Saunak is recognized for his diligent work ethic, adaptability, and willingness to embrace new challenges, all of which are crucial for thriving in dynamic environments across various geographies.
Education and Achievements
Saunak Saha has a solid educational foundation, having studied civil engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, formerly known as Bengal Engineering College. His educational journey began with a focus on science at St. Xavier's College in Kolkata, followed by secondary education at Bidhannagar Government High School. After completing his Bachelor’s degree, he pursued a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, empowering his career with key business and management skills.
In addition to his formal education, Saunak has pursued several advanced programs to deepen his expertise and leadership capabilities. He participated in the New Associate Partner/CBS Director Programme at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 2018-2019, where he gained strategic insights into managing high-level partnerships and consultancy practices. Further enhancing his knowledge, Saunak attended the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, where he expanded his understanding of business dynamics in a global context.
His formal education has been complemented by a distinguished career trajectory characterized by progressively responsible roles in leading organizations, where he has consistently demonstrated his capacity for influential leadership and innovative problem-solving.
Achievements
Saunak Saha has built a remarkable career in management consulting, with several notable achievements attesting to his skills and contributions in the energy, consulting, and business management sectors. These achievements include:
- Successful advising of government and private sector clients on performance assessments and developing actionable improvement roadmaps, enabling organizations to optimize their operations and enhance productivity.
- Advanced work with reputable international organizations, contributing significantly to the development of energy policies and GHG inventory practices that promote sustainability and climate change mitigation efforts globally.
- Leadership in consulting projects spanning diverse industries, showcasing versatility and adaptability across energy-intensive sectors such as metals and mining, cement production, and power generation.
- Development of innovative business solutions within the Power and Utility sector, leveraging advanced data analytics and IoT technologies to facilitate performance enhancements and operational efficiencies for clients.
- Engagement in extensive capacity building and business development initiatives that have fostered significant growth in international markets, underscoring his commitment to knowledge transfer and stakeholder engagement.
- Strong track record in client acquisition and retention, establishing enduring relationships with C-level executives and ensuring that client needs are met with tailored, high-quality consulting services.
- Extensive international assignment experience, with significant contributions to strategic initiatives across multiple geographies, demonstrating an impressive cultural adaptability and understanding of global market dynamics.
Saunak's career is marked by a continuous drive for excellence and a profound dedication to sustainable energy solutions, which underpin his reputation as a trusted advisor in the field.
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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.
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.