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Tom Gilley
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Professional Background
Tom Gilley is a prominent technology executive with a vast breadth of experience in the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Currently, he is focused on building a Pan-American connectivity business and overseeing digital transformation acquisition advisory at Convergia as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). His leadership has been instrumental in several transformative projects, including advisory roles for significant acquisitions such as the $2.1 billion acquisition of Raven by CNHi, emphasizing precision agriculture and autonomous farming.
Gilley's career reflects a profound commitment to advancing technology and innovation. His role in the $1.7 billion acquisition of Sensus smart meters by Xylem highlights his expertise in connected products, particularly within the utility and smart infrastructure sectors. Additionally, Tom was involved in the notable $100 million acquisition of Utopus Insights by Vestas, aimed at incorporating advanced data analytics in the wind and solar PV sectors. His strategic guidance was also evident when he contributed to WindRiver’s connected product cloud strategy, which ultimately led to a successful acquisition by TPG from Intel, culminating in a $4.2 billion agreement.
Education and Achievements
Tom Gilley studied Human Ecology at the College of the Atlantic, where he developed a strong foundation in understanding human interactions with the environment and technology. This education laid the groundwork for his future endeavors in various tech sectors, where he consistently blended ecological consideration with technological innovation.
Gilley has a remarkable portfolio of over 30 patents, showcasing his relentless pursuit of innovation in technology. He continues to be an active contributor to the IoT market through various advisory roles and as the CTO of Convergia. Notably, he founded wot.io, a revolutionary data service exchange for connected product platforms and enterprise systems, which was successfully sold to IDCC.
Tom’s journey in technology and innovation has seen him create and sell several successful businesses. He was instrumental in building the world’s largest broadcast media listening platform with Critical Media, where he utilized his skills in product development and strategic positioning. His prior experience at Vignette as CTO involved key contributions in company positioning and product strategies, supporting the company’s eventual sale to OpenText, further enhancing his reputation as a pivotal figure in technology transformation.
Before his extensive roles in advisory and executive capacities, Tom Gilley honed his product management skills at Apple Computer. Serving as R&D manager in the Advanced Technology Group (ATG) and later in the PowerBook Group, he developed a diverse range of innovative products, including handheld computers, connected products, tablet computers, set-top boxes, media systems, digital cameras, and social computing solutions. This experience in leading product development laid the foundation for his later transition into executive management at Apple, where he focused on new computer development.
Noteworthy Contributions and Impact
Tom Gilley's influence extends beyond product management; he is well-known for founding several successful companies and making significant contributions to the tech ecosystem. Meeting Technologies, a social computing company founded by Gilley, showcased his vision for user engagement through technology. FutureTel was another venture, focused on developing advanced telecom technologies to meet the growing demands of communication infrastructures. Additionally, his role as the founding CTO for ViaVision/Cobalt Microserver, which later sold to Sun Microsystems for $2 billion, exemplifies his ability to lead organizations toward impactful exits.
In Brazil, he held a pivotal role as the founding CTO for the second-largest internet portal, where he played an essential part in expanding technology accessibility and digital services in the region. His numerous leadership positions and advisory roles, such as those at various angel networks and educational institutions like Columbia University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, reflect his commitment to advancing technology and fostering innovation within the industry.
Tom's extensive experience in strategic advisory roles includes his past positions as Strategy Advisor CTO for Convergia, Critical Media, and the Columbia University. He has also served on multiple boards, including the Board of Directors at Utopus Insights and BIO-key International, Inc., and contributed his insights to organizations like the NJIT Highlanders Angel Network, where he supports the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.
As a technology executive who thrives on innovation, Gilley's journey is a testament to his dedication to pioneering advancements in connectivity solutions that enable a better future. His hands-on approach to mechatronics and diverse technical expertise encompass all aspects of product development, from initial ideation to final execution, ensuring his projects not only reach completion but also meet the high standards set within the tech industry.
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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
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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.
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.