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Jeff Leitner
Collaborations that produce big ideas and change in the world
Professional Background
Jeff Leitner is a distinguished innovator and thought leader, uniquely positioned at the intersection of creativity, philanthropy, and social impact. Often likened to Rick Rubin for organizations committed to making a positive difference in the world, Jeff has dedicated his career to collaborating with diverse groups that shape society for the better. Through his impressive resume, which boasts partnerships with over 60 esteemed organizations, he has played an influential role in driving meaningful change at both national and international levels.
Throughout his career, Jeff has worked with a myriad of notable clients, including NASA, the US Department of State, the TED organization, Harvard Medical School, Starbucks, and the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. He has consistently empowered these organizations through collaboration with more than 1,000 artists, scientists, policymakers, executives, and designers. This expansive network has allowed him to catalyze projects that address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
In one of his crowning achievements, Jeff contributed to the development and launch of the first-ever doctorate in social innovation at the University of Southern California. This groundbreaking program is aimed at fostering a new generation of leaders equipped with the tools needed to tackle complex social issues creatively and effectively. Additionally, Jeff’s involvement with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) led to the research and production of optimal strategies for addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. His work in this arena reflects his commitment to sustainability and his ability to bridge the gap between theory and practical application.
Beyond his work with educational institutions and global organizations, Jeff has also been pivotal in guiding efforts to map the future of various industries. This includes providing insights into the US legal industry, the interior design field, and the evolving practices of social work. His multi-faceted approach combines research with innovative thinking, ensuring that the solutions he advocates are not only visionary but also feasible and impactful.
Education and Achievements
Jeff's academic background is as impressive as his professional journey. He pursued his studies at Ohio State University, where he earned a Master of Arts in Journalism. His educational foundation in journalism has undoubtedly contributed to his exceptional communication skills and perspective on storytelling in social initiatives. Before this, he completed a Bachelor of Arts in Government at The University of Texas at Austin, which provided him with a solid understanding of public policy and governance—critical elements in his work with organizations focused on social change.
In addition to his educational accomplishments, Jeff has held several prestigious positions that underscore his expertise in promoting social innovation. He served as the Executive Producer at Goodniks, a platform dedicated to amplifying positive change, and previously held roles such as Design Fellow at Interior Environments, Senior Fellow at the Jim Joseph Foundation, and Lead Researcher at Unwritten Labs. This diverse experience has endowed him with a holistic perspective on how to fuse creativity with strategic thinking to cultivate effectiveness in different sectors.
Moreover, Jeff's role as Innovator in Residence at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work reflects his dedication to nurturing future leaders poised to impact social systems positively. His founding of UX for Good and his tenure as Dean at The Insight Labs further illustrate his commitment to leveraging innovative methodologies for social good. With his extensive background as a journalist, political operative, public affairs consultant, and entrepreneur, Jeff has amassed a comprehensive skill set that uniquely positions him to drive initiatives that resonate on both personal and community levels.
Achievements
- Pioneering Social Innovation Education: Jeff's role in developing the first-ever doctorate in social innovation at USC has made a significant impact on how social leaders are educated and prepared to respond to societal needs.
- Global Collaborations: His partnerships with various renowned organizations demonstrate his ability to operate on a global scale, working effectively to address complex challenges collaboratively.
- Research Contributions: Jeff's involvement with the OECD has led to valuable insights and resources that provide a roadmap for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting his strategic thinking and research acumen.
- Industry Mapping: By guiding the future trajectories of fields such as legal practice and social work, Jeff has established himself as an influential figure in shaping practices that require progressive change.
In summary, Jeff Leitner is a remarkable leader whose extensive experience and collaborative spirit have positioned him as a formidable force in the realm of social innovation. With a deep commitment to bettering society, his work stands as a testament to the power of partnerships and the importance of creative problem-solving in addressing the world's challenges. He is truly shaping the future of how organizations intersect with positive social change, making an imprint not just in the United States but around the world.
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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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