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Swee Mak
Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation Capability) and Professor of Innovation at RMIT
Professional Background
Swee Mak is a highly accomplished senior executive and thought leader with a career spanning multiple industries and sectors, including technology, transport, energy, infrastructure, defense, health, and government. With a flair for innovation and a passion for collaboration, Swee has significantly contributed to the advancement of technology solutions and services in complex environments characterized by varied stakeholders. His impressive background has led him to build a national profile as a key figure in driving industry-research collaboration and innovation.
In his current role as the Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation Capability) and Professor of Innovation at RMIT University, Swee plays a pivotal role in enhancing research capabilities and fostering industry partnerships. His approach is deeply rooted in inclusivity and collaborative leadership, emphasizing the importance of engaging team members in achieving strategic objectives. By promoting evidence-based decision-making, he nurtures an environment where performance is paramount, driving teams toward excellence.
Swee’s extensive leadership experience includes critical positions in esteemed organizations like CSIRO, where he served as Director of the Future Manufacturing Flagship and Deputy Chief of Industry in Materials Science and Engineering. His ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams showcases his commitment to fostering innovation and cross-functional collaboration across boundaries.
Education and Achievements
Swee Mak's academic background is as impressive as his professional accomplishments. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Civil Engineering from Monash University, where he also completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering with Honours. His thirst for knowledge led him to pursue a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) at the Australian Graduate School of Management, where he honed his skills in business administration and management. This diverse educational background equips him with a unique perspective that bridges technical and managerial disciplines, essential for navigating complex operational landscapes.
Swee has held prestigious roles throughout his career, including positions that demonstrate his leadership in innovation and research. As a thought leader, he has contributed to various advisory boards, including the Advisory Board at the Journal of Design, Business and Society and the Victorian Fulbright Scholarship Selection Committee. His insights have not only shaped industry standards but also fostered significant advancement in research capabilities at RMIT and beyond.
Notable Contributions to Industry
Swee Mak's commitment to fostering innovation extends to numerous initiatives that aim to bolster Australia’s manufacturing and research sectors. As Chair of the Steering Committee at the South East Melbourne Innovation Precinct (SEMIP), he plays a vital role in advancing collaborations among industry and academia. This position exemplifies his ability to connect stakeholders and drive collaborative efforts that benefit the broader community.
Furthermore, Swee has actively participated in various national-level committees, including the Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Task Force and the Advanced Manufacturing Advisory Board at CEDA. His involvement in these high-impact initiatives reinforces his status as an influential contributor in shaping policies and strategies that drive economic development in Australia.
His previous role as Director of the Victorian Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials (VCAMM) highlights his contributions to the understanding of advanced manufacturing practices, while his tenure at CSIRO as Director of the Future Manufacturing Flagship showcases his visionary leadership in fostering research and innovation in materials science.
Leadership and Management Style
Swee Mak's leadership style is characterized by a balance of inclusivity and decisiveness, catering to a wide array of operational and strategic needs. He is particularly adept at leading in environments marked by ambiguity, utilizing his innate curiosity and intuitive problem-solving skills to navigate uncertainty. His capacity to inspire and motivate teams stems from his commitment to fostering a collaborative atmosphere, where team members feel empowered to contribute to the organization’s strategic vision.
His entrepreneurial ethos has led him to become a catalyst for business opportunities, creating synergies through the connections he fosters within the industry. This approach not only enhances organizational prowess but also strengthens Australia's innovation ecosystem by linking research with practical applications.
By pursuing an evidence-based consensus style of decision-making, Swee emphasizes transparency and collaboration, while not hesitating to take direct control when necessary to drive results. This adaptable leadership approach ensures that his teams are consistently aligned with strategic goals, fostering a sense of ownership that motivates individuals to excel in their roles.
Community Engagement and Future Vision
Beyond his professional commitments, Swee Mak is actively engaged in community initiatives that underscore his belief in the critical role of education and research in shaping future generations. His involvement in educational boards and committees reflects his dedication to enhancing research capabilities and supporting aspiring professionals in their endeavors.
Looking to the future, Swee is passionate about utilizing his extensive experience to drive further advancements in industry-research collaboration. With an unwavering commitment to fostering innovation, he aims to create ecosystems where researchers and industry leaders can work together to address pressing societal challenges and generate meaningful impacts.
Through his leadership, Swee Mak continues to inspire others to embrace innovation, collaboration, and research, reinforcing his role as a cornerstone in Australia’s innovation landscape.
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Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
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
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- 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.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
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.