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Jenn Fenwick
Executive Coach specialising in Leadership transitions. Working with senior leaders to confidently navigate new roles and periods of high challenge; Internal promotions - Global mobility - Onboarding - Transformations
Jenn Fenwick is an Executive Coach based in Edinburgh, Scotland, who specializes in leadership transitions and works with leaders to confidently navigate periods of accelerated growth.12 She offers services as a Sounding Board and Leader Transition Strategist, as well as a Global Mobility Coach.8
Professional Background
Jenn Fenwick runs her own professional training and coaching company.2 She focuses on helping organizations and leaders, particularly those at the intersection of science and technology.3 Her expertise includes:
- Guiding leaders through their first 90 days in new roles6
- Helping executives navigate self-doubt and fear7
- Providing insights on leadership transitions and authentic leadership6
Content Creation
Jenn is also active in creating content to share her expertise:
- She hosts a podcast called "Chats with Jenn," which features conversations with business leaders. In May 2024, she announced the return of her podcast, with an upcoming episode featuring Matt Walz, a CEO.5
- Jenn regularly shares insights on LinkedIn about leadership, career advice, and professional development.467
Additional Roles
Outside of her coaching career, Jenn has been involved in sports administration. She served as the Edinburgh Secretary for Women's netball competition across 4 divisions, working closely with the CENA President and Treasurer to lead and coordinate key activities.1
Jenn Fenwick's LinkedIn profile (username: jennfenwick) reflects her role as an Executive Coach specializing in leadership transitions, working with leaders navigating growth and change.4
Highlights
Next level leadership; 100 days of insights, observations and behind-the-scenes with the Queen of Leadership transitions. 👋
Last week I committed to sharing 100 days of content around my specialist subject, leadership transitions, and how I work with organisations to set their leaders up for success and accelerate their evolution at pivotal career and organisational moments.
I promise to be insightful wherever / whenever possible, and not get on my transition soapbox 😉
Here’s a little behind-the scenes chat from me on this VERY autumnal Edinburgh day. Side note-Is it bad to put the heating on already? 🤔
Anyway, I hope you will join me, engage, and share your own insights over the course of the next 100 days.
Jenn
Do you remember your first day starting back at school? New shoes, new uniform (with extra growing room!), and a backpack full of possibilities...mixed with a healthy dose of nerves.
Transitions, whether a child starting a new school year or an executive stepping into a new role, evoke a similar cocktail of emotions.
Excitement, anticipation, nerves. It's all part of the journey.
But did you know there's a science behind these feelings? Transitions, even positive ones, can trigger a stress response. Our brains crave predictability, and change, even good change, disrupts that. That's why we might feel anxious, overwhelmed, worried.. plus the rest!
This is where the concept of resistance comes in. Evolution and growth are often met with resistance, both internally and externally. We may doubt our abilities, fear the unknown, or face challenges from our environment.
Our brains will throw up whatever it can to persuade you to stay within the safety of your comfort zone. It will delve into your deep-rooted fears, and even throw up memories from 20 years ago (when that one manager said you would never make it for insert irrelevant piece of feedback).
Whether it's a teacher welcoming a new student, a manager onboarding a new hire, or an Exec coach (hello 👋 ) guiding a senior leader through their critical first months, support makes all the difference.
It helps us navigate the emotional rollercoaster, build confidence, and ultimately thrive in our new environment.
So, to all those embarking on new adventures, big or small, know this: your feelings are valid and reflective of growth. Embrace the discomfort, but don't hesitate to reach out to others for support.
To organisations who have leaders making bold moves and navigating big steps in their careers: recognise that your leaders are navigating a complex emotional landscape.
Invest in their success and wellbeing by providing support systems, mentorship, and resources to help them thrive during this critical period.
Remember, a supported leader is an empowered leader, ready to make a significant impact in their new role. Don't wait for them to raise their hand.
And if you want a transition pro to work with your leaders to ensure they have the very best support from Day 1, let's chat...
Jenn and some Friday musings
PS - I post daily on leadership transitions; how to navigate from a leader perspective and and how to accelerate/support for Organisations wanting to give their leaders the very best support at pivotal moments.
... plus the behind-the-scenes/musings of the "Queen of Transitions" (self-coined) 😉 . 👑
Want to keep up with my insights? Click on the 🛎 on my profile...
PPS - pic of Miss P, pushing through her fears and growing in confidence every day ❤️
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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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