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Frances Messano
CEO at NewSchools Venture Fund
Frances Messano is the Chief Executive Officer of NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy focused on transforming public education in the United States. She transitioned to this role in January 2023 after serving as the organization's President since 2021, where she was instrumental in shaping its investment strategies and overseeing significant grantmaking initiatives.12
Career Background and Achievements::
- NewSchools Venture Fund: Messano has been with NewSchools since 2015, where she has led various initiatives, including the Diverse Leaders investment strategy aimed at increasing funding for education leaders of color. Under her leadership, NewSchools has invested over $45 million in educational ventures, with a focus on equity and innovation.24
- Previous Experience: Prior to her tenure at NewSchools, she held senior roles at Teach For America as Vice President of Strategy and at Monitor Institute (part of Monitor Deloitte) as an Associate Partner. These positions involved developing organizational strategies and enhancing educational outcomes.135
- Education: Messano holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard College. She is also a first-generation college graduate, which informs her commitment to educational equity.123
Community Involvement:: Frances serves on several boards, including Unidos US and Stand for Children, reflecting her dedication to increasing access to educational opportunities for underrepresented communities. She is known for her advocacy for racial equity in education and aims to create inclusive funding strategies that empower diverse leaders in the field.246
Personal Life:: Messano resides in San Francisco with her husband and their three children, who attend schools supported by NewSchools. In addition to her professional pursuits, she enjoys singing with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir and participating in karaoke nights.12
Highlights
Reflecting on my conversation with Carmita Semaan at Summit and a recent report she co-authored with members of The Bridgespan Group (Dorothy Jones, Grace Nguyen, and Nate Wong), I’m struck by how much work still needs to be done to support leaders of color.
While more leaders of color are stepping into executive roles, especially in education, we’re also seeing an exodus. Many leaders are fatigued from the lack of support for diversity-focused initiatives, waning philanthropy, and the "glass cliff" phenomenon. All these challenges lead to burnout and turnover as leaders of color are expected to solve systemic problems without support and resources.
When I transitioned into the CEO role at NewSchools, I was fortunate to have a critical mentor in Stacey Childress and a supportive board. We spent more than a year preparing for the change, communicating with all stakeholders, strengthening funder relationships, and ensuring I had the support I needed through an executive coach and Chief of Staff. This support was crucial, but this is not the experience of many other leaders of color.
We need more than just belief in the potential of leaders of color; we need actionable, sustained investment. This includes providing patient, long-term capital to new CEOs of color, so they have the financial runway they need to hire the right team members, develop a new strategy and oftentimes to fix what’s broken. It also requires board members to have a deep understanding of the unique challenges these leaders face, as well as the current state of the organization
The Bridgespan report outlines crucial steps funders can take to ensure leaders of color are not just surviving but thriving in their roles, and driving impactful change in our communities.
Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/gsTpbkUP
#NewSchoolsSummit2024 #Leadership #Diversity #CareerAdvancement #SuccessionPlanning #NonprofitLeadership #EducationLeadership #SupportLeadersOfColor #Philanthropy
I'm thrilled to share that I’ve joined the board of an organization that’s been instrumental in my professional journey: Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT). MLT empowers talented individuals from underrepresented communities to accelerate their careers with the goal of closing our nation’s racial wealth gap.
As I reflect on my own path, it feels like a full circle moment. At 26, I realized my life’s work wasn’t in finance. I wanted to find a calling that truly fulfilled me, so I pursued an MBA to help me change careers. Friends who were on similar paths pointed me to MLT, where I found deep support and a community of Black, Latino, and Native leaders who, like me, were seeking opportunity. The community I built there is still central to my life today, including close friendships with Ime Archibong, Constance (CJ) Jones, MBA, Joia Pardo-Matthews, Harlyn Pacheco, and so many others.
The support and guidance from MLT helped me find my true calling in education, fueling my passion for preparing students of color to succeed, which ultimately led me to become the CEO of NewSchools. So when John Rice, who has been a long-time mentor and friend, asked me to join the board and serve as one of their first two alumni directors, I couldn’t resist the opportunity. I am honored to serve alongside my good friend, Ime Archibong.
Thank you to MLT for this incredible opportunity. I look forward to working with such a dynamic and visionary group of leaders to continue driving impact for our communities.
One last thing, it’s not too late to make your annual contribution to MLT. Click here to give: https://bit.ly/4bCzqFb (Alumni, I’m looking at you!)
#Leadership #Diversity #Inclusion #ExecutiveLeadership #BoardLeadership #DiverseLeaders
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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.