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Ben Robinson
Founding Partner at Proud Robinson & Partners
Ben Robinson is a seasoned professional with a rich background in global networks like HAVAS and OMNICOM, as well as the renowned UK communications agency FREUDS. He has been involved in high-profile projects such as BALLANTINE'S URBAN HIGH, ORANGE WEDNESDAYS, and GUINNESS ARTHURS DAY.
With over 12 years of experience at Proud Robinson + Partners, Ben has led a team dedicated to creating culturally impactful work that prioritizes pride, trust, and respect. He has delivered groundbreaking projects for Diageo, Deutsche Telekom, EY, Vox Media, and Vanguardist, earning numerous awards along the way.
Ben Robinson is currently delving into academia as a Postgraduate Doctoral Researcher at the University of Sussex's School of Engineering and Informatics. His research focuses on studying the effects of immersive experiences and environments on behavioral and ontological shifts in the face of the global climate crisis.
Ben's academic journey includes a Master's degree in Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies from the University of Aberdeen. His professional roles have included positions at reputable organizations like University of Sussex, Proud-Robinson, Freud Communications, TBWA, and KLP Euro RSCG, showcasing his diverse skill set and expertise across industries.
Highlights
Last night, PRP delivered our 3rd WEOY event for EY in Monaco, and Vellayan Subbiah from India was crowned as the World Entrepreneur of the Year 2024 🏆
It marks the end of a week of incredible activity across our pop-up campus for this year's winners from around the world, and the culmination of months of tireless work by a peerless team of event professionals across EY, Proud Robinson + Partners, Atomized Studios, Freuds Group and our partners Event Engineering, cue2cue and Island Creations .
Whilst on the surface, the week has been about 51 individual winners, for me it is actually a celebration of the true power of partnership, the importance of planning and the transformational effect of having a team you trust.
27 years ago, I graduated from Aberdeen University with a master's degree in Entrepreneurship (who knew there was such a thing?), but it was years working as a chef that taught me the importance of being part of a team who will stand shoulder to shoulder with you no matter how heavy the lift. 👨🍳 👩🍳
The grind of split shifts and service after service showed me that proper mise-en-place is what makes a difference.
When you are faced with hundreds of covers each night, you pretty quickly learn that no matter how daunting the task, just break it down into its parts, plan each one out, work out what you need when you need it, who you need to help you, and what it is going to look like every time.
Even when I think about my journey over the last 13 years as a founder and entrepreneur, the most important part of Proud Robinson and Partners has never been the Robinson: it has always been the Partners.
Partners like Jake Sims-Fielding, Lucy Boyd and Keith Bignall whom I have been lucky enough to get to work with every day in the office, partners like Cue 2 Cue, Event Engineering, and Island Creations who allow us to flex and grow our team when needed and as importantly partners like EY , Diageo, Deutsche Telekom, Nissan Motor Corporation and Red Bull Racing & Red Bull Technology who we have had the pleasure of creating truly pace-setting, award-winning, attention-grabbing, dial shifting, bar setting campaigns, brand platforms and properties with.
So, if you have made it to the end of this post, I hope it serves as a little reminder at the end of a busy week that while it's great to celebrate individual successes, it's often the stories (and the teams) behind these successes that are the most important.
Thank you to our partners at EY Amanda Whitlock, Kate Humphrey. Rosie Gamble Jasmine Stengel, Marta Serrano Ollero Robert Brand, Angel R. Broach, John Rudaizky, Stasia Mitchell and Ryan Burke, and thank you to the PRP team on the ground in Monaco Nadia S., Tahnee Malina, Sarah Haynes, Jon Panayi, Tom Collins, Sol Ashley, Ant Gough and Krista Lehnhoff for a peerless demonstration of team work, preparation and planning at its best.
#eventproduction #awardshows #galas #globalevents
Over 40 years since its stills fell silent in 1983, last week saw the reopening of the Port Ellen Distillery on Islay, a labour of love for an extended team from across Diageo and its partner agencies.
Whilst much has already been said about the amazing design work, the innovative nature of the distillery and the experimental vision of the team at Diageo, what struck me most of all was:
🤲The spirit of community at the heart of what really is a “cathedral project”
🪢The deep respect shown by everyone involved for what the distillery has meant for nearly 200 years to the circa 800 people living in Port Ellen, to the 3,000 inhabitants of Islay, and what it has come to mean to a global community of collectors and connoisseurs.
🗝A sense of custodianship, of caring for something created by those who had come before in order to ensure it could continue to serve its community for generations to come.
This photo shows a multigenerational cross section of that community, sharing a dram, to mark this momentous occasion.
🌒Janna Ramsay Best and her daughter Mairi Best, fourth and fifth generation descendants of John Ramsay, the original visionary behind Port Ellen in the 1800’s. 🌓Ileach’s (Islay natives), Pinkie McArthur and his brother Treacle, original distillery workers, the former the last stillman and the latter who filled the last cask. 🌔Diageo’s Global Head of Supply Ewan Andrew who was responsible for breathing new life into the Port Ellen project. 🌕Distillery Manager Ali McDonald and Master Blender Aimee Morrison who will be running the reopened distillery.
It reminded me just how critical it is that we take a long-term, generational view.
To think about what’s gone before, what we’ve inherited, and how to take care of it so it's still there for those who come next.
Investing today in a future that is for all, and above all, for all time.
Shirine Modad Nicholas Moore Lucy Hamilton Adrienne Gammie Rowan Régnier Ian Smith Ewan Gunn Terri Bryce Alexander Williams Fiona Hunter-Wood
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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.