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Monica Welt
VP Compliance, Assistant Corporate Secretary (Aspiring Board Member_
Professional Background
Monica Welt is a distinguished legal professional who has garnered a reputation for excellent advisory capabilities within the corporate environment. As a lawyer who approaches her work with a business-savvy mindset, she has been successfully navigating complex legal and regulatory landscapes, particularly in the realm of enterprise risk management. In 2015, Monica joined Big Lots, a major discount retail chain, where she took on the significant responsibility of building an enterprise-wide compliance program that governs approximately 1,400 stores and five distribution centers spread across 47 states.
As she excelled in her role, Monica's responsibilities organically expanded to encompass a broad spectrum of initiatives, which include driving sustainability efforts, fostering business efficiency innovations, and supporting SEC compliance. Her leadership and strategic thinking were especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, where she co-led a cross-functional response plan to ensure the ongoing operational resilience of Big Lots amidst challenging circumstances.
Before her impressive tenure at Big Lots, Monica spent an extensive 14 years in private practice located in Washington, D.C. During this period, she provided strategic legal counsel to a variety of clients across different sectors, including multinational manufacturing firms, pharmaceutical giants, and consumer products conglomerates. Her extensive experience also consists of litigation in areas such as consumer product class actions and environmental torts. Monica’s diverse client portfolio covers a wide array of industries, including food and beverage, over-the-counter drugs, cosmetics, furniture, home goods, children’s products, as well as appliances, electronics, automotive, aviation, and chemical sectors—serving some of the most recognized Fortune 100 brands.
Education and Achievements
Monica's educational foundation is rooted in excellence. She completed her High School Diploma at the esteemed Columbus School for Girls, after which she pursued a Bachelor of Arts with Honors and Distinction in Liberal Arts at The Ohio State University. Here she achieved dual degrees in Classical Humanities and English, showcasing her commitment to academic excellence.
Eager to further her expertise in the legal domain, Monica went on to obtain her Juris Doctor (JD) from the prestigious University of Virginia School of Law. This rigorous academic background has equipped her with a robust skill set that she has adeptly applied throughout her dynamic career in law and compliance.
In addition to her hands-on legal experience, Monica has showcased her thought leadership through her prolific writing. She has successfully published more than 40 articles in recognized legal industry publications, including esteemed outlets such as the American Bar Association (ABA) and Law360. Furthermore, she authored a pivotal chapter in one of the leading ABA books on Product Liability, reflecting her deep knowledge and influence in this field.
Areas of Expertise
Monica Welt’s professional focus areas encompass a wide range of legal specialties, indicating her versatility and depth of experience:
- Enterprise Risk Management: A key area where Monica provides strategic insights to safeguard organizations against potential risks and liabilities.
- Compliance & Recall Program Development: She excels in establishing frameworks that adhere to regulatory guidelines and manage product recalls effectively.
- Anti-bribery/Ethics & Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Her knowledge includes navigating international compliance issues, ensuring ethical standards are met.
- Hazardous Waste, Environmental, Chemical & Tort Liability: Monica is well-versed in issues that touch upon environmental concerns, managing corporate liability related to these aspects.
- Marketing, Advertising & Claims Substantiation: She understands the intricacies of advertising regulations and claims to ensure compliance and protect brand reputation.
- Product Liability & Safety: Monica has a keen perspective on the legal aspects of product safety, helping businesses mitigate risks associated with consumer protection laws.
- Foreign Trade & Imports Advising: Her expertise extends to advising companies on the legalities of foreign trade, helping businesses navigate complex international regulations.
- E-commerce and Omni Channel Advising: As the retail landscape evolves, Monica provides counsel on legal considerations related to e-commerce operations and multi-channel marketing strategies.
- Internal Investigations: She leads and conducts thorough internal investigations to maintain compliance and ethical conduct within organizations.
Notable Positions Held
Throughout her career, Monica has held several notable positions, each contributing to her depth of knowledge and skill in the legal field:
- VP Compliance & Assistant Corporate Secretary at Big Lots Stores: In this dual role, Monica plays a pivotal part in guiding compliance strategies and fulfilling corporate governance responsibilities.
- Director of Compliance at Big Lots Stores: Before ascending to the VP role, Monica served as the compliance director, where she was instrumental in building the company’s compliance runtime.
- Counsel, Product Liability Litigation & Risk Management at Crowell & Moring LLP: Here, she managed product liability cases and risk management strategies for a prestigious law firm.
- Associate, General Litigation at Wallace King Domike & Branson: Monica gained valuable litigation experience in this association.
- Associate, International Trade Litigation at Dewey Ballantine LLP: In this role, she provided counsel related to international legal challenges.
- Constituent Aide for Sen. Robert F. Hagan at the Ohio Senate: Her career started with public service, assisting in legislative matters that laid the groundwork for her legal journey.
Monica Welt’s impressive career trajectory showcases her deep involvement in law and compliance, her commitment to excellence, and her passion for guiding organizations through complex legal challenges. Her ability to combine her legal expertise with strategic business thinking makes her an invaluable asset in any corporate setting, especially as organizations navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
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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
- 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.