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Morra Aarons-Mele
I help leaders, teams, and organizations discover their hidden superpowers. I study anxiety and leadership. Winner 2023 Mental Health America Media Award. Workplace mental health and issue advocacy consultant. Speaker.
Professional Background
Morra Aarons-Mele is a distinguished entrepreneur, author, and mental health advocate, recognized for her innovative approach to discussing complex issues related to mental well-being and leadership. Her passion for mental health as a pillar of success is paralleled by her extensive professional experience, making her a leading voice in the industry. As the host of the acclaimed podcast, The Anxious Achiever, Morra captures the attention of audiences across platforms, addressing the critical and often stigmatized topic of mental health in the workplace. Her podcast, hailed as a Webby Awards Honoree and a top-rated management show, exemplifies her commitment to fostering open dialogues about mental wellness in professional settings. This initiative reflects her belief that leaders who prioritize mental health can profoundly influence their teams and organizations.
Morra’s entrepreneurial spirit led her to found Women Online, an award-winning political and issue advocacy consulting agency. Under her leadership, the agency developed the Mission List, a pioneering database of female influencers that connects organizations with powerful women across various fields. This innovative project was sold in 2021, further solidifying her reputation as a disruptive force in the intersection of media, gender, and technology.
Her work extends beyond consulting and entrepreneurial ventures; she has played significant roles in political campaigns, working with three U.S. presidential candidates and a plethora of global mission-driven organizations to shape effective communications, marketing, and fundraising strategies. Morra's recognition as the 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year at the Iris Awards is a testament to her excellence and influence among digital content creators.
Education and Achievements
Morra Aarons-Mele’s academic background lays the foundation for her exceptional career. She earned her Master in Public Administration (MPA) with a focus on Government from the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School, following her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Political Science from Brown University. These formative years equipped her with the analytical and strategic thinking skills required to navigate the complexities of public policy and advocacy.
In addition to her entrepreneurial and consulting achievements, Morra has authored two influential books. Her debut work, Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There When You’d Rather Stay Home, published in 2017, has resonated with readers and offers sagacious advice on overcoming social anxiety and engaging with the world. The book became an Amazon bestseller, affirming her credibility as a thought leader in mental health. Morra's second book, The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower, was launched in April 2023 by Harvard Business Review Press and has quickly garnered acclaim, winning the bronze medal for Best Leadership Book at the 2024 Axiom Awards.
Morra’s contributions to the discourse on mental health and leadership have not gone unnoticed; she was recognized as a LinkedIn Top 10 Voice in the realm of mental health and was shortlisted for the prestigious Thinkers50 2023 Distinguished Achievement in Leadership Award. This accolade underscores her influence as a thought leader committed to promoting mental health advocacy within corporate and public leadership.
Publications and Contributions
Morra’s voice extends into numerous major publications, where she has shared her insights on mental health, politics, and social engagement. Her articles and essays have appeared in esteemed platforms such as The New York Times, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Guardian. Her ability to articulate complex ideas succinctly and compellingly has made her a sought-after author and speaker.
Her vast writing portfolio reflects her expertise in topics related to mental health in the workplace, the dynamics of leadership, and the experiences of women in professional spheres. As a former author for both Harvard Business Review and HarperCollins Publishers, her work continues to influence readers and leaders worldwide.
Community Engagement and Advisory Roles
Beyond her prolific writing and successful podcasting career, Morra has actively contributed to various organizations dedicated to mental health advocacy. She has served as an Advisor at Mind Share Partners, using her expertise to enhance workplace mental health programs. Her commitment to fostering environments where mental health is prioritized exemplifies her leadership ethos.
Her role as a public speaker has seen her share her experiences and insights at numerous conferences and events, helping to dismantle stigmas surrounding mental health and encourage open discussions about emotional well-being in professional settings.
Personal Life
Residing in Boston with her husband Nicco Mele and their three children, Morra balances her professional achievements with family life. Her personal experiences undoubtedly shape her dedication to advocating for a healthier relationship between mental health and professional success, as she endeavors to create a supportive environment for her family and beyond.
Summary
Overall, Morra Aarons-Mele exemplifies the intersection of mental health and leadership. Through her podcasts, books, and consulting work, she has become a prominent thought leader in promoting the importance of mental wellness in achieving long-term success. Her tireless advocacy continues to open doors for conversations that many find challenging, reminding us all that taking mental health seriously is indeed a leadership strength. Morra’s journey illustrates how understanding and addressing mental health can transform the workplace, empower individuals, and lead to meaningful changes in organizational culture. With numerous accolades under her belt and a critical role in shaping mental health discourse, she remains a powerful and inspiring figure in the realms of entrepreneurship, advocacy, and mental health education.
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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
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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.