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Howard Lorch
CFO at OHEL Children's Home and Family Services
Professional Background
Howard B. Lorch, CPA, has cultivated an impressive career in finance and management over several decades, becoming a highly regarded expert in his field. He has held the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, Inc. since September 2002. Ohel is an organization dedicated to providing vital services to children and families in need, and under Howard’s leadership, it has significantly expanded its service offerings and financial stability. His strategic vision and fiscal management have been crucial in driving the organization towards fulfilling its mission.
In addition to his role at Ohel, Howard actively participates in various fiscal management initiatives within New York City. He serves as the Co-Chairman of the Fiscal Management Committee of the Inter Agency Council, which is the umbrella organization for member agencies associated with the New York State Office of People with Developmental Disabilities. This position highlights Howard's commitment to improving financial practices and policies in the field of developmental disabilities. Furthermore, he contributes as an industry representative on the Contract Advisory Committee to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, a role that emphasizes his leadership in navigating the complexities of health and mental hygiene contract negotiations.
His involvement isn't limited to the non-profit sector; Howard is recognized as an active member of the New York State Society of CPAs CFO Committee and the Not-for-Profit Organizations Committee, where he collaborates with fellow professionals to identify best practices, share knowledge, and foster innovation in fiscal management for non-profit organizations.
Education and Achievements
Howard Lorch’s academic background provides a solid foundation for his extensive expertise in finance and management. He holds an MBA with a concentration in Finance, Accounting, and Marketing from the prestigious Columbia University Graduate School of Business, a distinction that underscores his strong analytical skills and business acumen. Prior to that, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business/Managerial Economics from Yeshiva University, where he laid the groundwork for his understanding of economic principles and their practical applications in business settings.
His professional journey began with Deloitte & Touche, LLP, where he was a valued member from January 1975 until February 1997. During his tenure there, he progressed to the position of Partner in June 1986, reflecting his exceptional skills in accounting and client service. His responsibilities included overseeing a diverse portfolio of clients, ensuring compliance with financial regulations, and guiding organizational strategies to promote growth and sustainability.
Following his extensive experience at Deloitte, Howard transitioned to the healthcare industry, where he demonstrated his adaptability and expertise in financial management. From March 1997 to May 1998, he served as the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of WellCare Management Group, Inc., a publicly traded health maintenance organization. In this role, he played a pivotal part in the financial stewardship of the organization, contributing to its strategic initiatives in a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.
Transitioning to Health Care Consulting
Howard further expanded his horizons by taking on the role of Senior Vice President at Omni Managed Health, Inc., a healthcare consulting firm, from May 1998 until January 2001. Here, he focused on providing financial advisory services to healthcare clients, helping them navigate challenges in cost management and operational efficiencies.
In the early 2000s, Howard shifted his expertise to the financial media sector as the Vice President-Controller of Individual Investor Group, Inc. (“IIG”). He held this position from January 2001 until August 2002 and also served as an independent consultant to the firm during the latter months of 2000. His tenure in this position allowed him to further diversify his skills in financial oversight and reporting in a media-driven environment, ensuring the company’s growth and sustainability with a firm grasp of market dynamics.
Howard’s professional portfolio is marked by a commitment to excellence and a passion for community service, particularly within the realm of children and family support services. His long-standing association with Ohel demonstrates his dedication to making a meaningful impact in the lives of those in need.
Community Involvement and Commitment
Beyond his official roles, Howard is known for his willingness to contribute to the greater community. His leadership within various professional committees is indicative of his belief in the power of collaboration and shared knowledge. He actively engages with colleagues and peers in the finance and non-profit sectors to advocate for transparent, responsible financial practices that provide a foundation for growth and success.
As a public advocate for the interests of children and families, Howard Lorch's work has positively impacted countless lives. His leadership at Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services serves as a testament to his commitment to social responsibility and community well-being. Through his roles, he seeks not only to manage finances but also to be a part of the ongoing dialogue about the best ways to serve vulnerable populations.
Conclusion
Howard Lorch's extensive career as a financial leader is marked by significant contributions to both private firms and non-profit organizations. His journey demonstrates how financial expertise can be harmonized with a passion for service and community engagement. With a robust educational background, a respected career at firms like Deloitte, and ongoing dedication to causes that matter, Howard continues to inspire and lead by example in the fields of finance, health care, and community service.
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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
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- 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.
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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.