Suggestions
Brett Dobbs
Co-Founder at M+D
Brett Dobbs is a co-founder of M+D Advisors, a consultancy that focuses on the intersection of media, policy, technology, and law. He has over a decade of experience in these fields and has been instrumental in developing digital solutions that enhance organizational operations. Prior to his current role, he practiced law, which complements his expertise in technology and policy.1
At M+D, Brett is recognized for his collaborative approach and professionalism, contributing to the firm's reputation in global conference development.23 His work involves bringing together leaders from various sectors to address pressing global issues, as evidenced by initiatives like the Global Africa Business Initiative.4
Highlights
Last week marked the sixth annual Bloomberg New Economy Forum, held in Singapore. While M+D has worked with Bloomberg since its inaugural event in 2018, this year’s forum held particular significance — occurring amidst heightened geopolitical uncertainties worldwide, in advance of the Xi-Biden meeting, and acting as a launching pad for the COP28 UAE agenda at the end of the month.
Key noteworthy developments from this year’s New Economy Forum included:
- The evolving dynamics in US-China relations will be a focal point in the 2024 U.S. Presidential election – watching how President Biden navigates resetting dialogue with China will be critical for understanding global security, trade, and a sign of whether relations will truly warm. The location of the meeting, San Francisco, is of particular interest, given concerns raised by local leaders about Chinese business practices. 2) Anticipation surrounding COP28—intended to be a pivotal event for accelerating the energy transition, reducing emissions before 2030, upholding the 1.5-degree target, restructuring the global economy for climate finance, and emphasizing people and nature in climate policy—is tempered by the realities of a multipolar world marked by heightened tensions among leading nations. The feasibility of global cooperation at this annual gathering—scheduled for the end of this month—is under scrutiny. 3) The United States' sustained focus on the Middle East raises questions about Ukraine's relative priority and the implications this might hold for global leaders contemplating contentious actions in their respective regions. M+D is privileged to be present in spaces where crucial dialogues occur, and policies and agreements take shape— both in plenaries and smaller breakout sessions between thought leaders. The next four weeks will shape the formulation of business and policy in 2024, and our collective interests are deeply vested in these outcomes. Thank you, as always, to the entire Bloomberg team for the incredible feat of bringing together such an impressive group of global leaders - and the delegates and speakers willing to engage on the world's most intractable problems. #US #China #geopolitics #business #finance #cop28 #climate
The last 14 days have been busy for M+D as we brought together global leaders for the Global Africa Business Initiative during the General Assembly in New York; global pop stars in London for fashion week; titans of finance and business in Abu Dhabi for New Enterprise Associates (NEA)'s Venture Capital Innovation Summit; and premiere technology and business leaders from sports for the Sportico Converge summit.
M+D’s incredible editorial and community teams were present on three continents managing close to 200 superstar speakers, including over a dozen world leaders and heads of state.
We were once again proud to work with the United Nations Global Compact and the African Union for the second annual GABI, working directly under the leadership of Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, Sanda Ojiambo, and Zain Verjee. We were honored to work with and welcome His Excellency President Ruto of Kenya, IFC Managing Director, Makthar Diop, Managing Director of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Pres. of Afreximbank, Benedict Oramah, Chair and CEO of The Coca-Cola Co., James Quincey, Microsoft Vice Chairman, Brad Smith, Founder and Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Mo Ibrahim, Caroline Wanga, President & CEO of Essence Ventures, CEO of the ONE Campaign, Gayle Smith, Actor Arsema Thomas, and over 100 other thought leaders from business, government, sport, non-profit, and the arts. A particular highlight was witnessing virtuoso Baaba Mal open and close the summit.
Also during UNGA, our partners at Al-Monitor held their first annual Middle East Global Summit, which featured impactful conversations about the region with His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of Jordan, Iraqi Prime Minister His Excellency Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and Deputy Assistant and Senior Advisor to the President for Energy and Investment Amos J. Hochstein.
Meanwhile, at the Venture Capital Innovation Summit in Abu Dhabi, M+D supported our partners in promoting the leading voices at the intersection of investment and innovation. The event featured Jeff Immelt, His Excellency Khaldoon K Al Mubarak, and former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb.
The week culminated back in New York with Sportico and Penske Media as they held their annual Converge Conference, which featured some amazing voices in the sports business world like Chris Marinak, Chief Operations and Strategy Officer, MLB.
We look forward to sharing articles about all of these events over the next few days as well as where we're headed in the next few months.
We are incredibly lucky to do this work and are grateful to our visionary partners who trust us to bring their event ideas to life, as well as to the number of teams with whom we have the pleasure of working alongside every day in the lead-up to these incredible events.
A special note of gratitude to LDJ Productions, Abc Advisory Company, Greg Cohen, my partner Sean McManus, and a titan of calm under pressure, Zain Verjee.
People also viewed
Related People
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.