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KR Liu
Global Head of Disability Innovation Marketing at Google | 2024 Cannes Glass Lion Jury | FastCo Queer 50 | ADWEEK Creative 100 | Presidential Appointee - US Access Board | US Congressional Award
Professional Background
KR Liu is a highly accomplished marketing executive specializing in both hardware and software, known for her unwavering advocacy for inclusive and equal access. With over 25 years of extensive experience in the technology sector, KR has consistently driven innovative marketing and product initiatives that prioritize support for the diverse disabled community. Her remarkable career has been shaped by a personal commitment that stems from her own experience with severe hearing loss, fueling her dedication to effecting meaningful change.
As the Global Head of Disability Innovation at Google’s Brand Studio, KR leads groundbreaking efforts to ensure that all individuals, regardless of their abilities, have equal access to technology and opportunities. Her exceptional leadership skills and expertise in the marketing field have not only garnered her recognition as a passionate thought leader but also placed her at the forefront of important movements advocating for disability inclusion, gender equality, and LGBTQ rights across the technology and marketing landscapes.
Education and Achievements
KR Liu boasts a noteworthy educational background, having studied for a Certificate in Leadership Training at the prestigious Center for Creative Leadership. Furthermore, she holds an Associate of Applied Science degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Heald Institute of Technology. This solid educational foundation has been instrumental in equipping her with both the technical knowledge and leadership skills necessary to excel in her career.
Over the years, KR has achieved significant milestones, including her successful lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill that led to the passage of the Over-The-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017. This landmark legislation, signed into law by the President, not only established a new retail channel for hearing aids but also enabled them to be sold over the counter in major retailers such as Best Buy. KR's advocacy work culminated in this remarkable achievement, making a substantial difference in the lives of individuals with hearing loss.
Notable Contributions and Impact
KR Liu is also recognized for her numerous contributions to initiatives focusing on inclusive design, brand marketing, and policy advocacy. She serves on several boards and has played vital roles in organizations such as Deaf Kids Code and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). Recently, she was appointed by President Biden to the United States Access Board, where she continues to influence policy and action for improved accessibility in public spaces.
Her commitment and activism have not gone unnoticed within the industry. KR's accolades include the prestigious U.S. Congressional Award, and in 2024, she will take her seat as a juror for the Cannes Lion Glass. She received nominations for the ADCOLOR AD OF THE YEAR Award and the Most Valuable Partnership Award in 2023. In 2022, she was honored on the FastCo Queer 50 list and named one of ADAGE's Leading Women. Other notable recognitions include appearing on Yahoo Finance's Top 50 Future Women’s Leaders List and being honored as Silicon Valley’s Top 40 Under 40. Her influence in the marketing and technology sectors is further evidenced by her nominations for various industry awards, including the ADWEEK Creative 100 and the ADCOLOR Rockstar Award.
Career Highlights
Throughout her career, KR has held several influential positions that have allowed her to champion disability inclusion and drive innovation within the marketing realm. She previously served as the Global Head of Brand Accessibility at Google, where she focused on creating accessible branding strategies that resonate with diverse audiences. In her role as the Principal Accessibility Marketing Lead at Amazon Lab126, she ensured that accessibility was prioritized in product development and marketing initiatives.
KR has also lent her expertise to organizations responsible for shaping the future of technology. As an advisor at X, the moonshot factory, and a former Advisory Board member at SXSW, she has contributed invaluable insights that have shaped projects aimed at pushing boundaries in technology and enhancing accessibility.
In addition to her strategic roles, KR's experience spans various sales and marketing positions, including her tenure as the Global Director of Sales and Business Development at Uncommon and Director of Sales at HoMedics. These experiences have provided her with a well-rounded perspective that informs her advocacy for inclusivity in technology.
Community Engagement
KR Liu’s engagement extends beyond her professional life; she is deeply committed to community service and engagement with organizations that uplift underrepresented voices. By serving on various boards, including the Board of Directors for Deaf Kids Code and the Hearing Loss Association of America, she actively works towards creating educational oppo
Highlights
Seeing Gus Walz express his love and support for his Dad during the VP nomination was powerful. It highlighted the importance of parental support and the challenges faced by children without it. The world's response shows progress in recognizing needs of individuals with disabilities, yet reminds us of the journey toward a truly inclusive society.
As someone who has firsthand experienced the challenges faced by students with disabilities, I can attest to the importance of providing them with the resources they need to succeed. I was fortunate enough to attend a public school in the Bay Area that had a school specialized for Deaf and HoH children in the early 1980s. This specialized environment allowed me to receive the support and accommodations I needed to thrive academically, socially, and pursue the things I love.
My father also played a pivotal role in my educational and athletic journey. He was my biggest supporter and advocate, always encouraging me to pursue my dreams and never letting my disability hold me back. When I expressed my desire to play drums in my 5th grade band class, he worked with the teacher to get me a snare drum so I could participate fully because people didn't think someone with hearing loss could play drums. He also went the extra mile to make sure that I had access to a basketball coach who understood how to support my disability, allowing me to improve my skills and confidence on the court. When there wasn't one, he became not only the coach, but was on the board of the local YMCA Youth SAY Basketball league to make sure all disabled kids had a voice in the room.
However, my father's untimely passing when I was 13 drastically altered my life. I continue to honor him every day.
I am grateful to my father, my coach, and my biggest supporter who was a tireless advocate for me and others like me. It was wonderful to see there are more like him out there.
Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan Palo Alto Unified School District (Jackson Hearing Center) Teacher Daryl Shafran
Honored and excited to be returning to The White House to celebrate Disability Pride and the 34th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Thank you President Biden and Dr. Biden for the invitation. Can't wait to celebrate with my peers and friends! See you soon DC!
#DisabilityPride
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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:
- 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
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- 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.