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Melissa Roberts
Founder and ED at American Flood Coalition - Forbes 30 Under 30
Professional Background
Melissa Roberts is a remarkable leader and visionary with an extensive background in strategic development and public policy. Currently, she is the Founder and Executive Director of the American Flood Coalition, an organization that is dedicated to addressing the challenges posed by flooding and climate change. Through her leadership, the American Flood Coalition has been at the forefront of advocating for solutions to protect communities across the United States from the increasing threat of flooding, while also promoting sustainable practices and resilience planning.
Prior to her impactful role at the American Flood Coalition, Melissa served as the Director of Strategy at First Street Foundation, where she played a vital role in shaping the organization’s strategic vision. Her expertise in data analysis and understanding of climate-related risks contributed to the foundation’s mission of providing property-level flood risk information to enhance public awareness and planning.
Before her tenure at First Street Foundation, Melissa honed her skills at McKinsey & Company, one of the world's leading management consulting firms. She began her journey there as a Summer Business Analyst and subsequently advanced to roles including Business Analyst and Engagement Manager. Her time at McKinsey provided her with invaluable insights into strategic planning, operational efficiency, and organizational leadership, which she has leveraged throughout her career.
Melissa’s early career experiences included impactful roles as a Business Consulting Intern at ADP, where she learned about business operations and consulting strategies, as well as her internships at the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. Each of these roles allowed her to develop a strong foundation in policy analysis and community engagement, further shaping her dedication to public service and environmental advocacy.
Education and Achievements
Melissa Roberts completed her Bachelor of Arts in History at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. Her academic journey helped her craft critical thinking skills and develop a deep understanding of societal influences throughout history, preparing her for a successful career in leadership and advocacy. Additionally, her formative education at Wellesley High School provided her with strong academic foundations, further guiding her passion for learning and engagement in global issues.
Melissa's achievements in leadership and advocacy have garnered recognition in her field. As she continues to drive important conversations around flood risk management and climate resilience, she serves as a role model for aspiring leaders. Her commitment to fostering community engagement and promoting educational initiatives around environmental issues highlights her dedication to making a positive impact on society.
Notable Achievements
- Founder and Executive Director at American Flood Coalition: Spearheaded initiatives to advocate for climate resilience, emphasizing community education and public policy changes.
- Director of Strategy at First Street Foundation: Developed strategic frameworks that advanced the foundation’s mission to improve public knowledge of flood risks.
- Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company: Led teams in delivering high-quality consulting services, enhancing operational practices for various clients.
- Contributions to Policy and Community Initiatives: Involved in various internship roles that focused on policy development and community outreach, providing a comprehensive understanding of public service dynamics.
Through her diverse experiences and unwavering commitment to public service, Melissa Roberts exemplifies a dynamic leader dedicated to advancing solutions for environmental challenges. Her proactive approach and strategic mindset continue to drive meaningful change, making her a respected figure in her field.
Highlights
What does it mean when 78% of communities impacted by Hurricane Debby were outside FEMA flood zones?
A new report from First Street reveals that more than 3/4 of the properties damaged by Debby were outside of FEMA's designated flood zone.
↪ And because they were outside of this zone, many of those properties didn't have flood insurance.
Equally disturbing - the storm caused roughly $12.3 billion in damage, with $9.7 billion of those costs outside of the flood zone.
Why this matters:
👉Only properties inside flood zones are required to have flood insurance, but FEMA designates flood zones based on outdated and inaccurate flood maps.
👉A lack of strong flood disclosure laws across most states leaves individuals in the dark about their property's flood risk.
👉 While Debby led to widespread coastal flooding, the biggest impacts were felt inland, where increased rainfall devastated communities.
As communities every day are impacted by stronger storms - including this week's flooding in Connecticut - we need to ensure flood zones are aligned with the realities of more frequent flooding, so people are better prepared for the future. https://lnkd.in/eePEjENs
Great news! Today, FEMA announced updates to the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program - one of FEMAs largest resilience programs - that will make it easier for states working to help communities recover stronger.
➡️ Now states will have up to 15 months to submit HMGP applications, instead of the previous 12 month deadline where states frequently required extensions.
👉👉 This change will give states more time to assess damage and develop higher quality projects, which is critical because historically only 26% of states were able to submit in the 12-month period!
➡️ FEMA will have more flexibility to reopen application periods, ensuring states are getting the right amount of resources and that taxpayer $ are going the furthest.
Why is this such big news?
→ These updates give states more flexibility as they seek post-disaster funding, especially as states grapple with back-to-back disasters
→ It's also a great example of an agency making small tweaks to a program based on stakeholder input, and putting resources within reach for more communities.
This is a move in the right direction and a step toward making federal funding more accessible - something we're constantly banging the drum about at American Flood Coalition
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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.