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Matthew Carpenter-Arevalo
Ex-Google / Ex-Twitter / Performance-Based Marketing
Professional Background
Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo is a distinguished Canadian-Ecuadorian entrepreneur, author, and digital marketing strategist known for his multifaceted approach to leadership and innovation in digital marketing. As the founder and CEO of Centrico Digital, Matthew has successfully established a managed marketing services company that caters to a diverse clientele across North and Latin America. His work not only focuses on providing exceptional marketing solutions but also emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity in international business.
With a rich professional portfolio, Matthew has held prominent positions at some of the world's leading technology and economic organizations. Notably, he served as a manager at Google, where his contributions to the Online Partnerships Group were pivotal in driving digital strategies that resonate with audiences across various demographics. Similarly, his tenure at Twitter as the Latin America Partner Manager allowed him to forge critical partnerships and enhance the brand's connection with Spanish-speaking users, further solidifying his reputation as an industry leader.
In addition to his roles at tech giants, Matthew has made significant contributions to the World Economic Forum as the Senior Manager and Head of Latin America for Global Shapers. This role showcased his commitment to fostering economic growth and social impact throughout the region by empowering young leaders and driving collaborative initiatives.
Education and Achievements
Matthew's academic journey is as impressive as his professional one. His scholarly pursuits led him to the University of Oxford, where he earned a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in Modern and Medieval Languages. This prestigious program honed his linguistic prowess and equipped him with the skills necessary to bridge cultural gaps effectively.
Before his studies at Oxford, Matthew completed his Bachelor's degree in English and Spanish Literature at St. Thomas University in Canada. This solid educational foundation has been instrumental in shaping his career, allowing him to communicate fluently in both languages and write compellingly on diverse topics, including technology, culture, and politics. His articles have been published in respected platforms such as TechCrunch, TheNextWeb, and Gk.City, highlighting his expertise and thought leadership in the digital space.
Achievements
As a Rhodes Scholar, Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo is part of an esteemed group of individuals recognized worldwide for their academic excellence and leadership potential. This honor is a testament to his dedication to academic and professional achievement. His entrepreneurial journey with Centrico Digital exemplifies his ability to identify market needs and provide tailored solutions that resonate with clients.
Matthew's extensive experience in digital marketing is underscored by his strategic foresight and innovative mindset. His work at Centrico Digital not only emphasizes the digital aspect of marketing but also integrates cultural understanding, making him a sought-after speaker and consultant in the marketing domain. He continues to inspire up-and-coming entrepreneurs and marketers by sharing his insights and experiences across various platforms, fostering a sense of community and collaboration.
As he continues to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of technology and marketing, Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo remains a pivotal figure for those interested in the intersections of culture, technology, and international business. Through his ongoing projects and thought leadership, he champions the opportunities that lie in harnessing digital tools for positive change and growth.
Highlights
I get a little triggered whenever I see environmental NGOs in the global north opposing carbon credits.
After all, without carbon credits, we have no plan for forests, no plan for carbon removal, and we offer the global south what I call the Green Sh!tty deal, and it goes like this:
The unstated expectation is that countries like Ecuador, where I live, should throttle their emissions while continuing to meet their populations' outstanding needs and aspirations.
At the same time, they must protect their vast forests and mangroves, which deliver ecosystem services/benefits to the entire planet. They must do so for free, absorbing the costs of the global north's pollution-driven development.
To boot, the country probably has an agreement with the IMF to enforce fiscal austerity, and it's likely dealing with some serious drug-fueled security issues along with illegal mining, which is driving deforestation and polluting waterways. Oh yeah, the global north demands minerals for its wind and solar projects and lithium for its batteries, but unless your government is anti-mining, frankly, your government is the enemy of the global environmental movement.
If the green sh!tty deal makes you uncomfortable, it should. Solving climate change while enabling development is complex and includes some not-great trade-offs.
Some might say the solution is for governments in the north to compensate governments in the south, but countries in the south know better than to pin their hopes on the arrival of that check. In Latin America, most school-aged children read Garcia Marquez's novella "El Coronel No Tiene Quien Quien Le Escriba", about an old man waiting to receive his military pension after heroically serving in a war. Spoiler alert: it never comes.
Carbon credits represent an imperfect but evolving proposal for complementary climate action.
When used correctly, high-quality carbon credits do not replace decarbonization efforts but instead are a means to take responsibility for emissions that are present today but won't be mitigated until tomorrow. That's why indigenous groups like the Peoples Forests Partnership (PFP) are urging SBTi to consider how to use credits to maximize decarbonization and regeneration.
Too many environmental activists don't want to wrestle with the complexity of decarbonization or the unintended consequences of their policy stances. Instead, they prefer to hold signs, yell slogans, and expect others to figure out the details. They claim to speak for indigenous peoples, but they won't listen to them.
So here's my suggestion: if you're an environmentalist publicly opposing climate action, consider whether you've got all the facts and are approaching the exercise with an open mind. Maybe try talking to someone who disagrees with you. If you're unswayed, propose an alternative. We must move on from environmentalism as only opposition toward environmentalism as proposition.
Over the years here in Ecuador, I have had the good fortune to see up close the work done by tireless forest advocates like Carolina Proaño Castro at Fundación Futuro and my good friend Garrett Siegers at Whole Forest.
If you talk to them about their front-line work in what remains of Ecuador's Chocó forest as well as its Andean forest, they'll tell you that, for small landholders, trees are like a savings account.
One of their kids needs school clothes? They chop down a tree. Unexpected medical expenses? They chop down a tree. In some parts of Northern Ecuador, communities are so poor that they'll harvest trees like teak as soon as they can, even if leaving those trees in the ground for a few more years until maturity will massively increase their yield.
So here's the uncomfortable truth: for most of the countries in the Amazon basin, small-scale farmers are driving deforestation and degradation. How do we get them to stop?
We pay them not to.
In Ecuador, the minimum wage is just below $500 a month, but many people live on wages well below that amount. In other words, it costs very little to change people's behavior from degrading their environment to protecting it, and the social impact can be huge.
When we look at the pushback on carbon credits, almost all of the voices that are against them come from the global north, and their primary concern is greenwashing.
When we look at who is in favor of carbon credits, the voices are overwhelmingly from the global south. Yes, they often don't have as big a microphone as their minority counterparts in the north, but they are willing to fight for a type of capitalism that does not require we sacrifice our natural inheritance for development. Our forests in Latin America are home to 40% of the world's biodiversity, and yesterday's toolkit of charity and government promises is not enough for the task at hand. Carbon credits are our generational opportunity to do just that.
As always, the devil is in the details, and we're still figuring them out.
Right now, it's hard for small landholders to participate in carbon projects.
Innovators like Josh Knauer at ReSeed.farm, Luke Schubert and the team at Open Forest Protocol, and Florian Reber and the team at Chloris Geospatial, to name a few, are working hard to make carbon credits a revenue stream for farmers and an integral commodity for companies. We need more investment and entrepreneurship dedicated to this task because the one thing we're short on is time.
I understand the arguments of those concerned about greenwashing; they're not wrong to be skeptical. Where I disagree is their narrow mindset in which carbon credits and decarbonization are mutually exclusive; they're not.
We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the flow of the river of capitalism in the global south. We're going to keep fighting.
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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:
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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.
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.