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Janet Piraino
State Director for U.S.Senator Tammy Baldwin
Professional Background
Janet Piraino is a highly esteemed professional with over thirty years of extensive experience serving as a trusted advisor to some of Wisconsin’s most distinguished public sector leaders. Her remarkable ability to manage complex, high-profile projects in fast-paced environments has solidified her reputation as a capable and influential figure in local governance and community engagement. Over her illustrious career, Janet has cultivated her expertise in leadership, communication, and problem-solving, making her an invaluable asset wherever she serves.
One of Janet’s most notable contributions is her role in successfully establishing freshman offices for prominent elected officials, including a Mayor, a State Representative, a State Senator, and two U.S. Representatives. This involved the strategic hiring and management of capable staff, setting robust policies and procedures, and developing comprehensive policy agendas and strategic plans. Through her ability to build effective teams and ensure a strong start for newly elected officials, Janet has consistently demonstrated her skills as an energetic leader and organizer.
Moreover, Janet's prowess extends beyond traditional roles into the realm of fundraising. She orchestrated a remarkable campaign that raised $2.4 million for the Overture Center for the Arts during a tumultuous transition year amidst a challenging economic landscape. Notably, her efforts tripled the previous year’s fundraising goal, while also escalating corporate gifts and sponsorships by more than 1,000%, from $94,000 to a staggering $1.1 million in just one year. This triumph underscores her unwavering dedication to the arts and cultural community.
In addition to her leadership and fundraising capabilities, Janet is recognized as a skilled negotiator. She led a city team that successfully negotiated an agreement between the Mayor, Common Council, and the Overture Center, resolving a significant $28 million debt and eliminating foreclosure threats against the region's premier arts facility. Her adept management of communication with Alders, Overture staff, and media played a critical role in defining and advocating for the agreement, which was ultimately adopted with overwhelming support from the City Council.
Furthermore, Janet has managed diverse projects that have had a lasting impact on her community. She provided essential leadership on the purchase and redevelopment of the Villager Mall, transforming a once dilapidated bowling alley into a vibrant neighborhood center featuring a new public library, Urban League workforce facility, and various health and social service providers. Her ability to secure the support of tenants, alders, and the public showcases her effective collaborative skills and dedication to community revitalization.
Education and Achievements
Janet Piraino pursued her academic studies at the prestigious University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with a dual focus on Journalism and German. Her educational foundation not only equipped her with critical communication skills but also fostered an appreciation for cultural nuances and storytelling, both of which have served her well throughout her career.
As a community leader, Janet has participated in various organizations and held significant roles that have enriched her professional landscape. Notably, she served as the District Director for U.S. Representative Mark Pocan, where she facilitated communication between the Congressman’s office and constituents, ensuring that the needs of the community were effectively addressed.
In addition, Janet held the position of Vice President for Advancement at the Overture Center for the Arts, aligning her passion for the arts with her fundraising expertise. Her role as Chief of Staff for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz enabled her to influence local policy and manage various civic initiatives, further highlighting her commitment to public service. Janet also contributed invaluable service as State Director for U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and as a Special Assistant for State Relations at the University of Wisconsin, experiences that further enhanced her legislative acumen and capability to navigate complex political landscapes.
Having worked as both Chief of Staff and Communications Director for U.S. Representative Tom Barrett, and as a Legislative Aide promoted to Senior Policy Advisor at the Wisconsin State Legislature, Janet has amassed broad experience in understanding legislative processes, policy-making, and constituent relations.
Achievements
Janet Piraino's career is punctuated by numerous achievements that reflect her dedication to public service, community engagement, and effective leadership.
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Establishment of Freshman Offices: Janet laid the groundwork for various elected officials' offices, including setting policies, developing strategic plans, and ensuring efficient management, thereby fostering an environment conducive to success for newcomers in public service.
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Fundraising Excellence: Her success in raising $2.4 million for the Overture Center for the Arts amidst a challenging climate showcases not only her fundraising acumen but also her capacity to inspire confidence in donors and stakeholders.
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Negotiation Skills: The successful negotiation of a $28 million debt resolution for the Overture Center emphasizes Janet’s ability to coordinate stakeholders to achieve win-win outcomes in complex situations.
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Community Revitalization: Janet’s leadership in the redevelopment of the Villager Mall transformed the community fabric by creating a multipurpose center that serves as a haven for health services, workforce development, and community gatherings.
As Janet Piraino continues to build her legacy in public service, her blend of strategic thinking, innovative solutions, and adept leadership will undoubtedly inspire future leaders and enrich the communities she serves. Her commitment to fostering meaningful change and uplifting those around her cements her place as a key figure in Wisconsin's public sector landscape.
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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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