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Colleen McCreary
Chief People, Places, & Publicity Officer at Credit Karma, Consumer Financial Advocate
Colleen McCreary is a seasoned human resources executive with over 20 years of experience in HR, operations, recruiting, and mergers and acquisitions. She is currently the Chief People, Places, and Publicity Officer at Credit Karma, a role she has held since joining the company in 2018. In this position, she oversees Credit Karma's People, Workplace Services, Communications, and Events teams, focusing on fostering a healthy workplace culture and driving long-term business value.13
Before her tenure at Credit Karma, McCreary served as the Chief People Officer at several prominent companies, including Vevo, The Climate Corporation, and Zynga. At Zynga, she was instrumental in scaling the company from a 130-person startup to a 4,000-employee public company.24 Her career also includes leadership roles at Electronic Arts and Microsoft.1
McCreary holds a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication and Public Relations from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Higher and Adult Education from Columbia University. Beyond her corporate roles, she advises startups and has been a technical advisor for HBO's "Silicon Valley".1
Highlights
One of my favorite quotes is from the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
Reflecting on some of my best work experiences, they usually involve great people and great work.
Great people are generally an understood proposition — the combination of the right talent coming together simultaneously and the attitude, commitment, and skills with the right business environment to make some special magic happen. The only downside of that magical moment is that although you recognize it’s great at the time, you don’t fully appreciate how special that time was until you leave that team or some circumstances change, and the magic of the moment has passed. I’ve worked with many great teams in my life but I can honestly say there have only been three times in twenty-five years where I’ve experienced this magic synergy. If I knew how to recreate all the circumstances to make it possible perfectly, I would.
When you reflect on the most impactful moments of your professional career, I'm certain most are about overcoming obstacles, creating something new, turning something around, challenging assumptions, dealing with difficult people, and leaving a legacy. You proudly share these moments in interviews, conversations, coaching sessions, and blog posts. They are the ones that shape your career decisions, both in terms of what you aspire for and what you want to avoid. They are your badges of honor.
The hard work moments are also where some of the biggest growth moments happen. I often say to employees that it’s way more fun to be adding chairs to an organization than subtracting them — but both have their challenges. If you’re in growth mode, there’s a set of learnings that happen, but if you’re having to do a turnaround, a comeback, or start from scratch, an entirely different set of skills comes into play. A whole set of learnings that take more creativity, drive, focus, and patience — a set of behaviors many people don’t often have. It’s why those stories stick with you. Those muscles don’t fade quickly; they become permanent and are gold medal-worthy.
So if you or your team are currently facing extra challenges, feeling short on resources, or dealing with a tough market, remember, you’re in the midst of it — and this time, right now, the hard — is what makes it great. Your current challenges are not just hurdles but opportunities for growth and success.
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Recently, as I was wrapping up a call with a first-time people leader, they asked me how they could build a great company culture as a leadership team. There are hundreds of books on this topic, thousands of posts, and podcasts, and they wanted me to boil it down in a few minutes.
Taking a swing, here are the three things I recommended.
*Use every opportunity possible to set clear expectations. This starts with the hiring journey with candidates to new hires and behaviors across the company. All employees should know what is expected of them in their role, how this is established, who evaluates, and how/when they can expect feedback. It also is important from the very top. What behaviors do we want to see from employees, how do we talk about customers, and what do we value? As Brene Brown would say, being clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
*Establish and communicate the top 3 priorities for the company — and I don’t mean three things with three sub-bullets and a lot of “ands.” Just three. I’m personally a big believer in the power of three. People struggle to remember more than three things, so do your best to curate & calibrate the top three priorities for the company and stick to them. Repetition works.
*Provide context for decisions. The power of why really matters, so people understand the thought process, prioritization, and how you got to this. If you have a culture of storytelling, the context is even better. People are more likely to remember the story and the why, making it easier to scale and repeat.
I’ll stick with my belief in the power of three, but in retrospect, I would have added to using as many modalities to communicate these messages as possible. In-person, video, audio, slide decks, and most importantly, in writing. Forcing yourself to write something out in long form is a great way to reinforce & codify messages and allows people who learn through reading vs. auditory to have more time to process. At my last company, during the 2.5 years we spent remotely, I wrote an email to the entire organization every Sunday. It was a great way to set expectations, communicate priorities, and, most of all, provide context through storytelling.
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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.
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