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Orysia Lutsevych
Co Author at Chatham House
Professional Background
Orysia Lutsevych boasts over 15 years of experience in non-profit management, working across four countries including Ukraine, the United States, Poland, and Georgia. Her diverse and rich background in non-profit initiatives led her to successfully start three influential organizations: Europe House Georgia, Open Ukraine, and the Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation Foundation (PAUCI). In her role at Open Ukraine, Orysia managed a comprehensive project portfolio valued at over $1 million, showcasing her expertise in project management and the ability to drive strategic initiatives from conception to completion.
Renowned for her remarkable skills in fundraising and organizational development, Orysia played a pivotal role in leading development initiatives at Europe House, which serves as a vital institution fostering bilateral relations and cooperation in civil society. With an extensive international network of political, business, and civil society organization (CSO) leaders, Orysia possesses a unique ability to navigate complex environments, streamlining processes to ensure rapid movement from development to implementation.
Education and Achievements
Orysia's academic credentials are equally impressive and form a solid foundation for her extensive expertise in international relations and public administration. She pursued her studies at prestigious institutions, obtaining multiple Master's degrees in Public Administration and International Relations. At the University of Missouri, she specialized in policy analysis, evaluation, and international economics. Concurrently, she also attended Lviv State University, where she focused on international organizations and diplomatic services.
Outside of her direct management roles, Orysia has contributed significantly to research and policy through her publications, including a noteworthy paper titled "How to Finish a Revolution: Civil Society and Democracy in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova," published by Chatham House. This important work reflects her profound understanding of regional dynamics and civil society's capabilities in driving democratic transformation.
Her consultancy work is marked by collaborations with esteemed organizations such as Social Impact, Open Society Foundations, PACT, and the Pontis Foundation. Orysia's experience in conducting impact evaluations and strategic development for new charity organizations has established her as a trusted expert in the non-profit sector, fostering significant growth and sustainability in various initiatives.
Areas of Expertise
Orysia's areas of expertise are expansive and varied, encapsulating critical themes such as social transition, civil society development, and citizen engagement. She excels in capacity building for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), external program evaluations, and aligning with European standards in grantmaking and philanthropy. Her strategic planning skills are complemented by her effective communication prowess, allowing her to engage stakeholders meaningfully and transparently.
Her commitment to fostering organizational growth is evident in her focus on board development and management, ensuring that the governance structures of the organizations she works with are robust and capable of navigating the challenges faced in the non-profit landscape. As an advocate for European integration, Orysia utilizes her extensive knowledge to support various initiatives aimed at promoting collaboration among Eastern European states.
Notable Contributions
Orysia's career has been marked by numerous accomplishments that highlight her ability to lead, innovate, and drive change. As a former research fellow at Chatham House, she contributed significantly to the Russia and Eurasia Programme, offering insights into regional security, civil society, and democracy. Her role as Manager of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House further showcased her commitment to fostering understanding and dialogue around pressing issues affecting Ukraine and the broader region.
As a consultant for organizations like the Harvard Institute for International Development and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Orysia has brought her expertise to bear in various contexts, guiding international efforts aimed at enhancing welfare in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Her tenure as Executive Director at the Open Ukraine Foundation was marked by notable strides in advocacy and support for democratic principles, helping steer the foundation's priorities towards impactful initiatives.
With an impressive array of roles ranging from Deputy Director of the Kyiv Office at PAUCI to Assistant to the President at Freedom House, Orysia has demonstrated a strong commitment to civil society and democratic governance. Her collaborations with the European Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundations have further solidified her role as a key player in the international non-profit sector.
Overall, Orysia Lutsevych stands out as a leader in the non-profit management sphere, characterized by her deep-seated commitment to civil society, democratic transition, and effective organizational practices. Her expansive network and her track record of successful initiatives position her as an influential figure capable of driving meaningful change and fostering collaboration across sectors.
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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
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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.