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Brian Tippens
SVP, Chief Social Impact Officer at Cisco
Professional Background
Brian Tippens is a highly accomplished and driven Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) executive leader known for his impact in building world-class global programs that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), environmental sustainability, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). With a wealth of knowledge amassed over two decades, Brian has expertly navigated the corporate landscape, meticulously planning and executing strategic initiatives that foster meaningful change within organizations and their communities. His proven track record of leadership is marked by his outstanding ability to engage with diverse stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, and community leaders, ensuring that programs are not only visionary but also achieve tangible results.
Throughout his illustrious career, Brian has played pivotal roles in major corporations, most notably with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Cisco Systems. As the Senior Vice President, Chief Social Impact Officer at Cisco, he spearheaded innovative CSR initiatives, aligning corporate strategies with sustainable practices that benefited society at large. His tenure at HPE was equally remarkable, where he held multiple senior leadership roles, including President and Executive Director of the HPE Foundation, and Chief Sustainability Officer. His commitment to minority business development and small business subcontracting has been an essential focus throughout his career, promoting equitable access to opportunities and resources for underrepresented groups.
Brian's expertise and dedication extend beyond corporate confines, as evidenced by his involvement with various esteemed organizations and advisory panels. His prior appointments include serving as a Senior Fellow at the American Leadership Forum in Silicon Valley, where he contributed to shaping leadership strategies that drive positive social outcomes within communities. His roles on the Board of Directors for the UN Global Compact Network USA and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering reflect his passion for cultivating diverse talent and addressing systemic inequities.
Education and Achievements
Brian Tippens' academic journey laid a robust foundation for his successful career in ESG leadership. He pursued a Juris Doctorate in Law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where he deepened his understanding of legal frameworks that govern corporate responsibility and social justice. Earlier, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from the University of San Francisco, equipping him with essential technical skills and insights that have served him well in the evolving fields of technology and business.
Brian's commitment to lifelong learning is evident in his teaching experience as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Kaplan University. In this role, he shared his vast insights into ESG practices and corporate sustainability with aspiring professionals, fostering the next generation of leaders in these critical areas. His strong educational background, combined with hands-on experience in high-level management and strategic planning, enhances his ability to create impactful initiatives.
Notable Achievements
Brian Tippens has received numerous accolades for his dedication to social impact, ESG leadership, and commitment to diversity and inclusion. His previous work as Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at HPE Foundation showcased his relentless drive to embed diversity within corporate culture, resulting in stronger teams and improved business performance. His leadership facilitated significant enhancements in employee engagement and satisfaction, fostering an inclusive environment where every team member can thrive.
In addition to his corporate achievements, Brian has also contributed significantly to community development through his various board positions and advisory roles, including his engagement with the Hispanic IT Executive Council (HITEC) and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC). His work has inspired industry-wide initiatives aimed at increasing representation and opportunities for minority business owners, leaving a lasting legacy in the field of supplier diversity.
Brian's speaking engagements and thought leadership across numerous platforms highlight his role as a respected authority in ESG and corporate sustainability. His passion for environmental stewardship, corporate accountability, and social equity continues to fuel his work, making him not only a leader but also a role model for professionals aspiring to make a difference in their communities and industries. His articulate representation of critical issues in sustainability and social responsibility engages audiences and drives impactful discussions globally.
Overall, Brian Tippens exemplifies the essence of purpose-driven leadership in today's corporate world. His combination of keen
Highlights
It’s a wrap on day 2 of Cisco LIVE !
What an incredible day at @CiscoLive! During this morning's keynote, it was clear that the potential of AI is undeniable. It's not just another technological milestone; it's a pivotal moment. Today, we unveiled groundbreaking AI innovations and investments aimed at helping our customers unlock a more connected and secure future—an inclusive future for all!
I was honored to share the Purpose Pavilion stage with a couple of my colleagues. Erin Connor Director, Cisco Crisis Response, and I discussed Cisco's strong legacy of leading the private sector in responding to crises around the world—especially when it comes to leveraging technology, expertise, and funding. It's all about laying the foundation for longer-term recovery. Charu Adesnik, Executive Director of the Cisco Foundation, and I had a dynamic conversation on how our framework for innovation creates new possibilities for empowering global non-profit partners. We mapped out the importance of driving impact at scale – now and for generations to come. Later, Charu and I took the stage again to discuss our Partnering for Purpose initiative, focusing on digital inclusion, economic empowerment, and environmental stewardship. Doing good is good for business! This initiative aligns with our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all, emphasizing collaboration with partners, customers, and suppliers to create positive impacts on people and communities.
And, this afternoon it was a privilege to spend time with the NetAcad delegation from India. Any chance I get to spread the energy and power of Cisco's purpose is a great day! We were thrilled to host the delegation at Cisco Live.
The buzz on the show floor today was truly inspiring and energizing. Being surrounded by like-minded individuals who are passionate about driving positive change is invigorating. I can't wait to see what day three at Cisco Live will bring! #purpose #socialimpact #CiscoLIVE
We've achieved our milestone of positively impacting one billion lives, and that’s just the beginning.
To build on our success and accelerate progress to reach the next billion, we’re staying true to our guiding principle: Our ability to impact lives is our ability to scale. We’re expanding our focus to entire communities and countries through initiatives like our Social Impact, Networking Academy, and Country Digital Acceleration programs. By addressing systemic inequities and driving innovation, we’re committed to creating lasting, generational change and powering an inclusive future for all!
See our new eBook, One Billion Lives Positively Impacted, to learn how we surpassed our goal of positively impacting 1.1 billion people by 2025.
And then learn what’s next in our mission at #CiscoLive, where I’ll be sharing the stage with @GuyDiedrich , Cisco's Global Innovation Officer. #purpose #socialimpact
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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.