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Alberto Lopez Valenzuela
Entrepreneur | Investor | Growth Advisor
Professional Background
Alberto Valenzuela is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in the dynamic fields of data analytics and business intelligence. His impressive career is marked by a commitment to driving innovation and fostering growth within complex organizations. Alberto laid the foundation of alva in 2010, a groundbreaking AI analytics firm nestled in the heart of London. The firm's mission is to equip businesses with the necessary tools to understand, predict, and manage the influence of stakeholders on their reputational landscape and overall business performance.
Under his astute leadership, alva burgeoned into a robust entity with a vibrant workforce of over 80 dedicated employees and established significant operations in both London and New York. This ambitious firm has catered to the needs of hundreds of large organizations globally, reflecting Alberto’s capabilities in driving enterprise success through innovative data-driven solutions. His visionary approach not only emphasized the importance of stakeholder engagement but also paved the way for businesses to navigate complex decision-making environments.
In 2021, a pivotal moment arrived when alva was acquired by the US-based private equity firm Falfurrias Capital Partners as part of a systematic "buy-and-build" strategy. This strategic acquisition enabled the integration of six adjacent businesses in the stakeholder solutions arena, culminating in the formation of Penta. As a Senior Partner and Managing Partner of the Intelligence (AI) division, Alberto played a crucial role in steering Penta to become a global leader in stakeholder solutions, solidifying its place at the forefront of the industry. His leadership style emphasized innovation and adaptability, equipping organizations with the insights necessary to navigate the complexities of stakeholder relationships effectively.
As of 2024, Alberto has embarked on a new and exciting chapter by founding Ordino Partners, a venture creation firm that focuses on incubating, investing in, and providing advisory services for tech ventures that harness the power of AI to foster social progress. This initiative reflects Alberto’s dedication to leveraging technology for positive societal impact and underlines his commitment to supporting the next generation of innovative businesses.
Education and Achievements
Alberto Valenzuela boasts an impressive educational background that complements his extensive professional journey. He pursued an Executive MBA at the esteemed Bayes Business School, where he honed his skills in strategic decision-making and leadership. Furthermore, he earned a BA (Hons) from the University of the Arts London, a vibrant institution known for its focus on creativity and innovation in the arts and design fields. Additionally, Alberto's academic endeavors included a Licenciatura in Diseño Gráfico from Idep Barcelona, Escola Superior d’Imatge i Disseny, Universität Abat Oliba CEU, establishing a strong foundation in design that has undoubtedly informed his approach to business and technology.
Throughout his career, Alberto has contributed significantly to the professional community, sharing his insights and experiences. He authored the impactful book "The Connecting Leader," published in November 2018 by Lioncrest Publishing, which reflects his thoughts on leadership in the context of connectivity and stakeholder relationships. Furthermore, he has made valuable contributions as a Visiting Professor in Corporate Reputation at Bayes Business School, sharing his extensive knowledge and experiences with the next generation of leaders in the business world.
Notable Positions and Roles
Alberto's career is characterized by a variety of influential roles across several prestigious organizations. Before founding alva, he honed his strategic acumen as the Director at Cision, where he played a key role in managing public relations and communication technologies. His expertise also extended to the position of Commercial Director at CIO Connect, where he oversaw business strategies that bridged technology and commercial insight.
During his tenure as Vice President of Emerging Markets at Datamonitor, Alberto made significant strides in broadening market access and optimizing operational strategies for global markets. Earlier in his career, he served as an Analyst at PA Consulting Group, where his analytical skills began to develop, allowing him to generate impactful insights for varied clients. These foundational experiences laid the groundwork for his future endeavors in leadership roles.
Alberto also cultivated important relationships early in his career while acting as Key Account Manager at P&W Greenaways, followed by a role as Product Manager at TECFA, contributing to the development of educational technology solutions. His journey began with an internship at La Vanguardia, offering him a unique perspective on media and communication.
Achievemen
Highlights
It’s been a while since my last post. Back in February, I planned to take it easy for a while—to unwind, spend time with family, take care of routine health check-ups, and prioritise a few business ideas.
But life had other plans. What began as minor health issues escalated into something more serious—I ended up undergoing five surgeries in four months. One of them was an emergency due to post-surgery internal bleeding, which could have been fatal. My wife’s city driving skills saved me that day.
Having to slow down gave me the chance to dive into reading and podcasts, which became great companions during my recovery. I deliberately avoided the exhausting hype going on and anything that felt unnatural. It was liberating to declutter.
With my body healing and no longer on auto-pilot, I had time to reflect on how I’d like to spend my time post-recovery. The thought that kept coming back was: “Whatever I do should be fun, working with people I admire, supporting upcoming entrepreneurs and business builders.”
That’s how Ordino Partners was born. We envisioned a venture creation firm focused on originating, developing, and launching new businesses by incubating ventures, advising curious and tenacious founders, and investing when the right opportunity arises. This is the work we love most.
Currently, we’re incubating two of our own ideas: Conntextual, a generative AI-based business intelligence solution for VCs and start-ups, and Next AI, a platform where some of the most experienced minds in AI share their knowledge with senior leaders in Southern Europe.
I’ll be sharing regular updates through a new blog I’m launching called “Change Is All There Is.” It’s an informal take on the entrepreneurial journey, filled with lessons we’ve learned and insights from influential doers and thinkers.
As for the health issues, I’m pleased to say that’s all behind now and things are back to normal.
Thank you for reading as always, feel free to get in touch if any of the above interests you—or just to say hi.
After 14 years since founding alva - which then became Penta in 2021 - the time has come for me to step down and focus on my young family and new ventures. It’s been an amazing journey, starting in London in 2010 with Alastair Pickering and Richard Fleming and ultimately becoming the global stakeholder solutions with 400+ employees across multiple offices around the world
I’m extremely grateful to the many people that gave their best to build an AI-led stakeholder intelligence firm, and whose energy and hard work became invaluable to achieve the success that we have achieved.
Equally, clients, investors and partners (many of whom became esteemed friends) made the experience rich, fulfilling and fun in so many ways. Thank you to each and every one that formed part of alva and the Penta story.
A special mention to the two alva Chairman, Andrew Vickerman and Bill Haney and to alva’s CFO, Richard Goldsmith. Thank you for your support and for providing invaluable input when it was most needed. I was very fortunate to count on you.
Finally, my very best wishes to everyone at Penta Group, it has been great working with you over these past couple of years and wish all success building a great business. Please do stay in touch, and if not already, connect via LinkedIn.
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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.