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Johanna De Los Santos
BA, MA | Co-Executive Director /Chief Growth Officer, Art Start
Johanna De Los Santos is a seasoned Executive Director with an impressive 17 years of experience in nonprofit youth education, boasting a diverse skill set in management, team leadership, creative direction, program management, and arts and media industry partnerships. She holds a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Arts, Media, and Social Movement Theory from New York University, further solidifying her expertise and knowledge in her field.
With a strong educational background, Johanna pursued her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in International Relations and Affairs at both the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico - Recinto de San Germán. Her academic journey also includes studies in Political Science and Government, Economics, and Spanish.
Throughout her career, Johanna has been involved in various organizations and held key positions that have shaped her professional journey. She has served as the Founder and Board Chair of Bembé Drum & Dance, the Executive Director at ART START NYC, and has held roles in notable organizations like Pressure Point Films, Favela Rising, and the New York International Latino Film Festival. Her experience extends to the corporate sector with positions such as Business Analyst at Briggs & Stratton and Assistant to the Director of Academic Outreach at the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Johanna De Los Santos' passion for youth education, arts, media, and social movements shines through her extensive experience and educational background. Her strong leadership, management skills, and creative vision have been instrumental in driving the success of the organizations she has been a part of, making her a respected figure in the industry.
Highlights
NYC Massive... I'm excited to invite you all to the second annual Art Saves Lives Music Benefit Concert happening on July 12th at SOB's on Varick(NYC). Join me and my Art Start family for an incredible evening of music, art, and community. We'll be celebrating emerging and professional New York City performing artists while raising vital funds for Art Start programs. Plus, don't miss the chance to win some amazing prizes in our raffle, featuring cool items from our generous sponsors. Get your tickets now! #ArtSavesLives #ArtStartOrg #BenefitConcert”
I know it's customary to come on LinkedIN with the ubiquitous announcement of a new job. Well, today, I am excited to announce that I've kept my job, but have a new partner, a Co-Executive Director of Art Start! As any CEO knows, having a co-leader is universe- shifting, and there's no one I'd rather co-lead with at this time than Art Start's new Co-Executive Director / Chief Executive Officer, Reshard Riggins. Art Start has been committed to collective leadership since 2014. That means collaborative decision making between two co-leaders, various mindsets and experiences to pull from, the de-centralization of power within a community organization, the important space for leaders to have specilizations and focus in an all-consuming role, and a commitment to emotionally sustainable directorships. With Reshard's co-leadership, my role will transition to Co-Executive Director / Chief Growth Officer. After 15 years, I'm excited to carve out even more time and space to connect with our strategic partners, visionary funders and donors, and build greater opportunties with our industry collaborators to benefit the Art Start community of artists and emerging professionals. Yes, to evolution! (Maybe I will even make it onto LinkedIN more now!)
Check out Reshard's bio and get excited with me for the next chapter of collective leadership and Art Start!
Reshard Riggins joins Art Start with over 30 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, workforce development, and operations systems management, including a Masters in Public Administration with a focus on Nonprofit Management and Public Policy from Baruch College. She is an original member of the Corporation for National and Community Service's (CNCS) Americorp national initiative to promote qualitative community service within urban and rural communities, and served as a Chicago Public Ally under the leadership of Michelle Obama.
Reshard is a graduate of the United Way Fellows program in Nonprofit Leadership Development and Columbia University's Senior Leaders Program for Nonprofit Professionals. Reshard has joined Art Start to combine her lifelon #leadership #nonprofitleadership #nonprofit #sustainable #leaders #development g passion for the arts, leadership, and workforce development after a decade at The Door - A Center of Alternatives, where she was Managing Director of Career and Wellness Services. Prior to The Door, she spent eight years at Gay Men's Health Crisis pioneering and leading their Workforce Development and Economic Empowerment program.
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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:
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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 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.
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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.