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Pradeepa Narayanaswamy
Leadership Coach | 2XAuthor | TEDx Speaker |Voice for Infertility & Adoption
Professional Background
Pradeepa Narayanaswamy is a renowned Enterprise Agile leader and Executive Coach with over 20 years of experience across the tech industry. Known as a "Pragmatic Agilista," Pradeepa has dedicated her career to fostering environments where organizations can thrive and become the best versions of themselves. Rooted in a diverse background that bridges technical expertise with leadership, she excels in the promotion of Agile mindsets and practices that enable teams to achieve high-quality customer-focused outcomes. Her experience spans various roles, including Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, within both co-located and distributed teams, driving progress through continuous learning and adaptability.
Her tenure includes significant positions at large organizations such as Constellation Brands and KPMG US, where she led Agile practices and coaching initiatives. Additionally, she has played pivotal roles in the Agile community, serving multiple terms as Track Chair for Agile Alliance conferences, where she shared her valuable insights on Project, Program, and Portfolio Management.
Education and Achievements
Pradeepa's educational qualifications highlight a strong foundation in computer applications and coaching. She holds a Master’s degree in Computer Applications with a focus on Information Technology from Bharathidasan University in Tiruchirappalli, complemented by a Certified Professional Co-active Coach certification from the Co-Active Training Institute. Her undergraduate studies culminated in a Bachelor’s degree in Science, specializing in Physics and Electronics at the same university.
Pradeepa's commitment to personal and professional growth is evident in her dedication to coaching leaders. Her objective as a coach is to empower individuals to realize and achieve their highest potential, often inspiring them to pursue goals they once thought unattainable. This passion is underscored by her involvement in public speaking, where she leads workshops on leadership, team building, and Agile methodologies.
In addition to her professional roles, Pradeepa is an accomplished author. She has published two Amazon Best Sellers: "Infertility Can SUCK LESS" and "Loving Myself and You." Her exploration of personal challenges parallels her professional mission to foster resilient and empowered communities. Her most recent work is an insightful guide for anyone facing the struggles of infertility, showcasing her resilience and dedication to helping others navigate similar obstacles.
Notable Contributions and Community Engagement
As an active contributor to the Agile community, Pradeepa has led the local Agile group, DFW Scrum, for numerous years, establishing a platform for Agile enthusiasts to connect and learn. Her public speaking engagements, including a TEDx talk, further emphasize her commitment to sharing knowledge and fostering collaborative educational environments. Her TEDx presentation is particularly notable as it showcases her commitment to inspiring personal growth and overcoming adversity.
Throughout her career, Pradeepa has held various leadership and coaching positions across prominent organizations. Notable roles include:
- Senior Director - Head of Agile Practice at Constellation Brands
- Director - Head of Agile Center of Excellence at KPMG US
- Enterprise Leadership Coach at Toyota North America
- Agile Track Chair at Agile Alliance for multiple years covering significant topics on Project and Portfolio Management.
She has also earned a reputation as a Professional Scrum Trainer, delivering high-quality training that empowers teams to leverage the Scrum framework effectively.
Specialized Focus on Infertility
In addition to her Agile leadership, Pradeepa specializes in supporting individuals facing infertility challenges. Drawing from her personal journey of 12 years, she has developed numerous resources aimed at helping others navigate their paths. Her book on infertility reflects her profound understanding and empathetic approach, offering hope and strategies to those who seek support.
Through her website, Pradeepa offers coaching and resources dedicated to personal development, professional growth, and support for individuals challenging infertility, further enhancing her impact within both the Agile and personal wellness communities.
Conclusion
With a passion for fostering agile methodologies and championing personal growth, Pradeepa Narayanaswamy is a dynamic leader invested in enhancing organizational effectiveness and individual empowerment. Her comprehensive skill set, which includes executive coaching, community leadership, and public speaking, positions her as a prominent figure in both the Agile and broader coaching fields. As a 2X Amazon Best Selling Author and a TEDx speaker, Pradeepa's unwavering commitment to helping individuals and organizations thrive is evident in her extensive career accomplishments and ongoing comm
Highlights
Can Great Leadership Be a Coincidence?
I had a coaching conversation with a senior leader a few weeks ago. During our conversation, they expressed their dissatisfaction with the recent feedback they received from their team. I got curious and asked what they got as feedback, and they responded that it was good. I got more interested and asked them why they were dissatisfied with the feedback. It was because they were still trying to understand why the team gave them great feedback and are now frustrated that they must somehow remember how to reproduce the same to get similar feedback the following year! They also believe that this feedback is just a fluke.
This is an interesting topic to explore.
Great leadership is never a coincidence that happens by chance or luck. It is intentional behavior, role-modeled, irrespective of the circumstances, with all people involved. In my client's case, they needed to realize how they were supporting their team, helping others succeed, setting a powerful vision, and consistently taking care of the challenges, which got them accolades. Great leadership is never ONE BIG thing. It's being consistent on all relevant things to their team.
One way to get closer to your team's feedback is to ask for it regularly and proactively. I got regular feedback/feedforward every quarter. It helped me understand what/how to change my style/behavior to support my team more effectively. I often asked for their advice, which was helpful so I could figure things out with others. My team appreciated that and was open and generous in advising me on the opportunities that I wanted to work on for myself.
A mere coincidence can never lead to sustainable great leadership because it requires consistent behaviors and role modeling.
Do you believe great leadership can be a one-and-done thing? I would love to hear some perspectives.
#leadership #leadershipbehaviors #leadershipdevelopment #PLDS #PradeepaLeadershipDevelopmentSchool #CoachingInsights #feedback #feedforward
INTRODUCING Robin LeFevre, MASTER GUEST TEACHER
I am thrilled to introduce you to the first Master Guest Teacher in my upcoming Pradeepa Leadership Development School - Jan 2025 Cohort. The sole purpose of Pradeepa Leadership Development School is to help you become a thriving leader and enable significant career growth and higher income levels.
Today's video features a unique opportunity to learn from a well-respected executive, Robin LeFevre. Robin, adored by her colleagues, peers, and leaders, is known for her ability to influence an entire organization, get things done, and genuinely care for her people while displaying a fantastic sense of humor. I had the pleasure of serving under her leadership at Toyota in 2019, and she was also a Master Guest Teacher for cohorts 1 and 2 this year, with her master classes being a resounding success. I am thrilled to bring her back to teach a master class for Cohort 3.
In the upcoming Pradeepa Leadership Development School, Robin will teach students practical skills that can significantly impact their organization. These skills include building exceptional relationships, getting things done, and understanding what it means to be a generous leader. Robin's career success is a testament to the effectiveness of these skills, and she will guide the students on how to create this success in their careers.
In this short video, Robin discusses the behaviors needed to lead and manage a team effectively and what she learned from her experience managing a diverse team under her leadership.
If you are interested in enrolling or want to learn more about the Pradeepa Leadership Development School, please get in touch with me. The school is an online weekend program will last six months, starting mid-January 2025. #leadershipdevelopment #school #careergrowth #MasterTeacher #Jan2025Cohort #Leadership
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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.