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John Hummelstad
Director specialising in indoor mapping
Professional Background
John Hummelstad is a seasoned leader in the technology and business sectors, recognized for his ability to effect meaningful change across industries and communities. Currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer at Locatrix, he has devoted over 10 years to enhancing software solutions that profoundly impact emergency preparedness in Australia and beyond. Under his guidance, Locatrix has established itself as the country’s premier provider of fire, evacuation, and indoor mapping technology. The company’s commitment to site-specific, online, and interactive training ensures compliance with Australian Workplace Health & Safety regulations, showcasing John’s dedication to safety and innovation.
In addition to his role at Locatrix, John's career has been characterized by his expertise in guiding high-growth companies through various strategic complexities, including Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Mergers and Acquisitions. His roles on the boards of several U.S., Australian, and Asia Pacific companies have provided him with a diverse range of experiences, enhancing his unique ability to forge impactful partnerships and drive value across the board.
John’s approach to leadership is grounded in building a culture of trust and collaboration, valuing input from customers, key stakeholders, and executives alike. His ability to connect people and ideas has resulted in a commitment to fostering an entrepreneurial spirit that nourishes technical innovation and promotes a culture relevant to the present day.
Education and Achievements
John has pursued an extensive educational background that has equipped him with the necessary skills and insights to thrive in the fast-paced technology sector. He studied an Executive Programme in Business at the prestigious London Business School, further refining his strategic and leadership capabilities. He also acquired a Certificate in Organizational Leadership from Mt Eliza Business School, a testament to his commitment to effective governance and management practices.
In addition, John holds both a Master's and Bachelor’s degree in Business, with a focus on Economics, from Macquarie University, further solidifying his business acumen and analytical skills. His academic accomplishments complement his extensive practical experience in tech and business, facilitating his ability to lead organizations toward success.
Key Organizations and Positions
Throughout his illustrious career, John Hummelstad has held a series of influential positions across various organizations, showcasing his versatility and adaptability. Before taking the helm at Locatrix, he served as a Partner at iq360 Pty Ltd, where he utilized his expertise in business to drive growth and operational efficiency.
John has also applied his strategic insight as a Non-Executive Director at Tiny and Absolute Board Co., further expanding his impact in the business world. His previous experience as a Director at Sanctuary Cove Medical Centre and Committee Chair at Queensland University of Technology illustrates his commitment to nurturing the next generation of leaders through mentorship and community engagement.
He was also a pivotal figure at Revelian, where as a Non-Executive Director, he contributed to the company’s strategic direction until its acquisition by Criteria Corp USA in February 2020. In his capacity as Chairman of the Hummingbird House Foundation, he demonstrated his dedication to philanthropy and improving the lives of children and families in need within Queensland.
Prior to venturing into the tech industry, John held significant roles at well-known corporations. As Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, as well as Southeast Asia at Serena Software, he was instrumental in expanding the company’s reach in a competitive market. His regional experience extends back to his time as Regional Director at Microsoft, where he honed his leadership skills in a global operating environment. Additionally, working with IBM Australia's Venture Capital division provided John unparalleled insights into the intersection of technology, investment, and innovation.
Achievements
John's contributions to the tech industry and beyond are noteworthy, as he harnesses his passion for people and partnerships to drive change and facilitate growth. His strategic vision for Locatrix has not only resulted in enhanced emergency preparedness solutions but has also saved lives across various communities in Australia.
Being at the forefront of game-changing technologies, products like PlanStudio, PlanSafe, and the Emergency Services Platform (ESP) have revolutionized the Fire and Emergency space. Through these products, John and his team have been able to partner effectively with businesses and organizations, establishing valuable connections that yield significant outcomes for all stakeholders involved.
His commitment to education and leadership development is evident through his roles on various boards and community initiatives, reflecting a strong sense of social responsibility that is often overlooked in the corporate world. By fostering a culture of respect, collaboration, and integrity, John Hummelstad continues to inspire the next generation of leaders and innovators.
In summary, John Hummelstad is an accomplished executive, educator, and philanthropist whose career is defined by a commitment to technology, safety, and community improvement. His extensive background in business leadership, coupled with a deep understanding of the tech landscape, positions him as a leading figure in driving industry advancements while nurturing valuable partnerships and discovering innovative solutions to today’s challenges.
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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.