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Adis Vila, NACD.DC
Independent Director | Former State Agency CEO, Assistant Secretary, USDA and Chief Diversity Officer, USAFA | White House Fellow | Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Professional Background
Adis Vila is a distinguished global CXO with an impressive career spanning over 30 years, marked by her ability to drive substantial success in both public and private sector organizations worth billions of dollars. Her expertise lies in navigating highly regulated industries and empowering organizations to successfully undergo transformational changes. With her extensive background in international business and regulation, Adis brings invaluable public policy and foreign affairs experience to executive teams and boards, making her a sought-after leader in her field.
In her private sector role as the Vice President of International Business Development at Vigoro, a $750 million agri-business, Adis played a pivotal role in facilitating market access for the company's products across multiple regions including Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and Scandinavia. Her strategic negotiation of agreements with distributors and business partners was critical in driving profitable global growth and expansion for the organization. Additionally, during her tenure as VP of Government Relations and Regulatory Policy for Nortel Networks, a $22 billion telecom supplier, Adis led crucial initiatives in trade, infrastructure development, investment, and social responsibility across 40 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Adis’s public sector experience is equally impressive; she has managed complex government agencies in high-level executive roles. Notably, as the Secretary (CEO) of the Florida State Department of Administration and Assistant Secretary for Management (COO) for the US Department of Agriculture, she demonstrated her capability to lead transformative initiatives that enhance agency effectiveness and foster a culture of excellence.
Education and Achievements
Adis Vila's educational background is as remarkable as her professional accomplishments. She earned her MBA in Marketing and Business Policy from the prestigious University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Furthermore, she holds an LLM (equiv.) in International Law, International Relations, and International Economics from the Geneva Graduate Institute. Adis also obtained her Juris Doctor (J.D.) with honors from the University of Florida’s Fredric G. Levin College of Law, as well as a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) with Distinction in Mathematics and Political Theory from Rollins College.
In addition to her robust educational qualifications, Adis has participated in several noteworthy leadership programs and certifications, including the Radcliffe Institute Leadership Program at Harvard University and the Senior Executive in State and Local Government program at Harvard Kennedy School. She has also earned specialized certificates in fields such as Foreign Investments and International Business Law, Public International Law, and International Human Rights from esteemed institutions across the globe.
Adis's leadership skills have been recognized in the field of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as she served as the first Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) at the United States Air Force Academy. In this role, she designed and implemented a comprehensive DEI strategy, earning her the Innovation Award from Profiles in Diversity Journal for her innovative approach to developing cadets' management skills at multinational corporations.
Notable Contributions and Affiliations
Adis's impressive profile also includes a range of contributions and roles in esteemed organizations. She is a 30-year member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has received prestigious fellowships including the US-Japan Leadership Fellowship and the Eisenhower Fellowship, which took her from the US to Argentina. Adis is also a beneficiary of Rotary International’s Group Study Exchange to India and a Graduate Ambassadorial Fellowship to Geneva. These fellowships have enriched her understanding of global governance, providing her with critical insights that she utilizes in her leadership roles.
Her governance experience is further demonstrated through her service on the Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Telephone Bank and her role on the Advisory Board of Global Asset Management, which is a subsidiary of UBS. Recognized widely, Adis has been named a "Leading Latina" by Hispanic Executive and a "Director to Watch" by Directors & Boards.
Community Engagement and Early Career
Adis Vila’s professional journey also reflects her commitment to community and global engagement. Earlier in her career, she held a range of impactful roles including being a Special Assistant at the U.S. Department of State, where she focused on Latin America and its international relations. Her time as a White House Fellow allowed her significant insight into national policy-making processes. Moreover, Adis has worked as an attorney at esteemed firms such as Paul & Thomson and Nestle, where her roles included working at their World Headquarters in Switzerland. Her career began in a rather unconventional manner, starting as a Tour Guide at Walt Disney World, showcasing her diverse skills in communication and engagement from an early stage.
Born in Cuba and immigrating to the United States as a political refugee, Adis Vila’s rich cultural background adds a unique perspective to her professional endeavors. Fluent in four languages, she has lived and worked extensively across the United States, Latin America, and Europe, facilitating cross-cultural understanding in both business and state affairs.
In conclusion, Adis Vila’s exemplary career is characterized by her unwavering commitment to excellence and advocacy for diversity and inclusion. Her broad experience in international business, government relations, and leadership development, coupled with her prestigious educational background, positions her as a formidable leader for transformative initiatives within any organization. Adis continues to inspire many with her strategic vision and dedication to empowering others in their professional journeys.
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Mesh 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, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh 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.
Mesh 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
Mesh 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, Mesh 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 Mesh 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 Mesh 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.
Mesh 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. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh 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.
Mesh 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. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh 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. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh'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.
Mesh 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. Mesh'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.
Mesh 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. Mesh 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, Mesh 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.
Mesh 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.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh 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. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh 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 Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh 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, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh 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. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh 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.
Mesh 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 Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh 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, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh 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.
Mesh'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. Mesh 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 Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh'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, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh 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 Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.