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Kristian Raston
Trade and Investment Adviser - Digital Games & Creative Tech
Professional Background
Kristian Raston operates as a versatile trade and investment adviser at Austrade, which stands as Australia's pivotal Trade and Investment Agency. In his role stationed in Western Australia, Kristian serves as a key contributor to promoting and facilitating the growth of local digital technology businesses. His expertise is particularly pronounced in the realm of creative technology and the burgeoning digital games sector, where he stands as the lead adviser. Kristian's commitment to delivering impactful results for his clients showcases his dedication to fostering industry growth and innovation.
Kristian brings a wealth of experience from diverse industries, boasting a robust track record of success in areas such as video-on-demand, travel technology, and agricultural technology (ag tech). His professional journey reflects a deep-seated motivation to engage in international business, particularly through the lens of international relations, trade dynamics, and software as a service (SaaS) product marketing and management. His blend of strategic vision and practical execution affirms his position as a valuable resource for clients seeking to navigate the complexities of global trade.
Prior to his current tenure at Austrade, Kristian built a formidable background in product marketing roles within the agtech sector and cultivated significant experience during his time with Google in Tokyo. Here, he managed pivotal relationships with Indian film studios, thereby enhancing Google Play's offerings in the region. Alongside these responsibilities, he also contributed to the travel tech industry as an online distribution executive, showcasing his breadth of knowledge and adaptability in different contexts.
Education and Achievements
Kristian’s educational foundation has played a crucial role in shaping his professional trajectory. He studied a Diploma of Tourism, Marketing, and Product Development at the Challenger Institute of Technology, giving him a solid grounding in crucial concepts that influence consumer behavior and market trends. This early education laid the groundwork for his understanding of the intersection between tourism and digital innovation.
Pursuing further academic excellence, Kristian obtained a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) degree in International Business from Murdoch University, equipping him with a strong understanding of global markets, trade regulations, and business strategy. This education facilitated his foray into international business, where he could effectively apply classroom theories to a dynamic, real-world context.
In addition, Kristian holds a Master of International Relations from The University of Western Australia, which illustrates his commitment to understanding complex global interactions and trade networks. This advanced education complements his on-the-ground experience, allowing him to analyze international scenarios dynamically and strategically.
Notable Achievements
Through his career with Austrade and in previous positions, Kristian Raston has garnered notable achievements that underscore his expertise and influence within the trade and investment landscape. As the trade adviser dedicated to Western Australia's digital technology sector, he has played a pivotal role in facilitating trade missions, connecting local companies with international markets, and ensuring that Western Australian businesses leverage opportunities to grow and innovate.
His prior role as a Marketing Officer at Decipher and Marketing Coordinator at Agworld allowed him to hone his skills in crafting compelling marketing strategies that resonate with target audiences across various sectors. At Agworld, he helped enhance the visibility of agtech solutions, driving adoption and awareness in an increasingly competitive market.
As a Partner Operations Specialist while working at Google Japan, Kristian's talents shone through as he optimized relations between Google Play and key film studios, enriching content offerings and boosting user engagement across Asian markets. His experience as an Online Distribution Executive at V3 Leisure Management and Marketing further solidified his expertise in the travel tech sector, allowing him to develop strategies aimed at enhancing travel experiences through innovative online solutions.
Conclusion
In summary, Kristian Raston stands out as a prominent figure in the trade and investment advisory space, particularly within Australia's vibrant sectors of digital technology and creative industries. His comprehensive background, underscored by strong education in international business and relations, positions him as a top adviser capable of navigating clients through the intricacies of global markets. With his wealth of experience across multiple sectors, Kristian's work at Austrade not only focuses on fostering economic growth but also on empowering businesses to harness their potential on an international scale.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.