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Kate Jackson
Strategic and values driven leader with a high impact track record in social impact strategy, change management and communications, talent and leadership development, and DEI. SHRM-SCP.
Kate Jackson is a dedicated professional who specializes in supporting diverse, inclusive, high performing leaders and teams in driving innovation and progress.
With a strong background in developing data-backed business and HR strategies across public, non-profit, and private sectors, Kate focuses on designing organizational and operating models to achieve goals, and empowering workforces for success.
Her approach emphasizes creativity, fun, and a growth mindset to bring bold visions to life, with a continuous commitment to learning and sharing insights.
Kate holds an MBA in Finance, Management, and Strategy, International Business from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, along with a Bachelor of Arts in History from Harvard University.
Throughout her career, Kate has held key roles in various prestigious organizations such as Wayfair, Capital One, Grist, and McKinsey & Company, where she honed her expertise in career development, performance management, strategic consulting, and knowledge sharing.
Her experience ranges from serving as a Senior Knowledge Expert to leading as Head of Global Career Development and Performance, highlighting her versatility and depth of knowledge in diverse professional settings.
Kate's journey also includes impactful roles at the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation, Cocker Fennessy, Futurewise, and Green Corps, showcasing her broad experience in different sectors and domains.
As a seasoned professional, Kate Jackson continues to drive positive change by leveraging her extensive skillset and passion for fostering growth and excellence in individuals and organizations.
Highlights
Inspirational climate career message from the NYTimes: "Don’t feel like changing careers? Every job can be a climate job, as some readers noted. You can be the person who pushes your employer to lower the company’s emissions, start recycling, adapt to growing flood risks." This advice was in response to an ask for readers to share stories of choosing careers in the climate space to learn more about people's motivation and experience.
It brought back memories of sorting banana peels from Diet Coke cans from printer paper in the offices of leading companies that had decided to invest in composting and recycling but hadn't quite nailed the landing on messaging, behavior change, and signage. Many of us on the green team were surprised that colleagues so casually disposed of products - in the wrong places - when it would take so little time to make a difference. We went to work making signage clearer, making the actions more fun to take, and building a sense of meaning to the act.
Sometimes the solutions are far away, hard to reach, or require extreme technical expertise. Other times they are close by but we make them feel remote by thinking, "what difference will this make?" Gosh, by that logic, a lot of core values and behaviors could go out the window!
Choices do make a difference - for that company's waste bill, that city's air quality, that composting company that stays in business because they're not having to sort out candy wrappers and water bottles from their deliveries.
So, choosing a career in climate can look as direct as having it in your title or indirect as having it in your behaviors, choices, and role modeling. Here's to making that choice and sharing stories to inspire others! Looking for examples? Highly recommend the Degrees podcast by EDF. https://lnkd.in/eU_33K3h Recent features with Kristy Drutman Heather McTeer Toney Kameale C. Terry are highlights.
#climatecareers #edf #storytelling #changemanagement
Recently someone asked what psychological safety looks like in practice, in the day to day flow of work’s smaller moments not major conflicts, and how it can have a direct impact on results. This story came to mind and resonated for her - would be great to hear others that bring the concept to life for you.
I was in a leadership meeting with four executives of a fast moving social impact start up. One of them was impatient to stop talking about a revised process he'd developed to address some data quality issues and get to the next item on our agenda - the sales strategy. He quickly reiterated the five steps he asked everyone to take, and moved on.
Seeing a pattern of rushed communication and some of its consequences, one of the leaders paused the conversation and asked for a few minutes to be sure everyone understood the new process and could implement it. This felt bold. There were power dynamics at play. A sense of hierarchy was palpable even over Zoom. But why fix one flawed process with another? It might feel satisfying in the moment to quickly do something new, but that often leads to more confusion later.
“Let's take a minute to hear everyone describe the steps that they'll take. How will each of us approach this work?" People shared how they interpreted the ask. It emerged that not only had everyone interpreted the steps differently, two smart ideas were raised about how to reduce the number of steps and capture data more consistently. We agreed to check in on implementation in two weeks rather than waiting for an issue. One of the leaders said, “That seemed like it was going to be awkward! But it was the right call. Why don't we we do that more?”
The question "do you understand?" can lead people to instinctively answer "yes" even if we don’t. Few of us want to seem incapable, and saying "no, I don't understand," doesn't feel great - especially when there's impatience or judgment in the question's tone, or hierarchy in the person asking. Even if we genuinely think we understand, we might have had our own interpretation. Framing the question as a capability and team-alignment moment, not as a test, can create more psychological safety and surface new ideas. Of course, like in this situation, it took some psychological safety to even ask it!
How do you help ensure that leadership teams are aligned? What ways do you practice and reinforce a culture of psychological safety?
HBR also has some great recent advice and explanations on the topic! https://lnkd.in/exGmfxNB.
#psychologicalsafety #processimprovement #powerfulquestions
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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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