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Runa Takizawa
Head of Brands, Next Generation Products at Imperial Brands PLC
Professional Background
Runa Takizawa is a distinguished marketing professional with extensive experience in the field, particularly within the tobacco and consumer goods sectors. Currently serving as the Head of Brands at NGP (Next Generation Products) for Imperial Brands PLC, Runa has played a pivotal role in shaping the branding strategies of innovative tobacco products. Her leadership in the marketing department at Imperial Brands has showcased her ability to navigate complex market dynamics while driving brand growth and engagement. Before rising to this prominent position, Runa held the role of Head of Heated Tobacco, where she was instrumental in developing and promoting heated tobacco products, responding to consumer trends and regulatory landscapes in the tobacco industry.
Previously, Runa excelled as the Head of Digital, where she transformed digital strategies across platforms to enhance consumer interaction and brand visibility. This role allowed her to leverage emerging digital trends, positioning Imperial Brands at the forefront of the industry's technological advancements. Before diving into digital marketing, Runa served as the Consumer Activation Manager, focusing on translating marketing strategies into actionable plans that resonated with consumers. Her ability to connect with diverse audiences has been a hallmark of her career, evidenced by her success in varied roles.
Runa's journey in the marketing landscape began with formative experiences at prestigious organizations such as Havas Worldwide Japan K.K. as a Strategic Planner, where she undertook significant market research and strategic planning initiatives. Her early career included impactful roles such as Marketing Management Trainee at British American Tobacco Japan, helping her understand the intricacies of brand management and consumer engagement from a foundational level.
Education and Achievements
Runa Takizawa’s academic background is a strong pillar of her professional expertise. She began her educational journey at Palomar College, where she studied General Education. This foundational experience equipped her with diverse knowledge and skills that would lay the groundwork for her future studies. She then advanced her education by earning a B.A. in Communication from the prestigious University of California, San Diego. Here, Runa honed her communication skills, which would prove invaluable in her marketing endeavors, especially in roles requiring consumer engagement and brand representation.
In pursuit of enhancing her language skills, Runa completed an Intensive English Language Program at EF International Language School in Santa Barbara. This experience not only elevated her proficiency in English but also broadened her worldview, which is essential in today’s globalized marketplace where multilingual communication is key to effective marketing strategies.
Runa's commitment to education and professional development is evident in her active participation in various organizations. Notably, she served as the Marketing Committee Director for Phi Beta Lambda at UC San Diego, where she led initiatives to foster business leadership among students. Her early experiences as a Membership Secretary for Phi Theta Kappa at Palomar College and as a tutor in Japanese and Chinese at Palomar College demonstrate her diverse skill set and a commitment to helping others learn and grow, laying the groundwork for her future management roles.
Achievements
Throughout her career, Runa Takizawa has garnered numerous achievements that reflect her capabilities in marketing management and brand leadership. At Imperial Brands PLC, she has successfully integrated innovative product marketing strategies that have significantly enhanced brand perception and market share. Her ability to anticipate market trends and consumer needs has been critical in launching successful campaigns for heated tobacco products—a testament to her strategic foresight and industry knowledge.
Runa has also been commended for her pioneering work in digital marketing initiatives, which have significantly improved interaction rates and customer relationships. Her roles have consistently required innovative thinking and a proactive approach, qualities that have facilitated her rapid promotion through various leadership positions at Imperial Brands.
Moreover, Runa's early career instilled in her a strong foundation in media and communications. During her internship with KFMB-TV CBS Channel 8's Promotion and Community Service Department, she gained insights into the media landscape that further enhanced her understanding of strategic marketing in television and radio. Similarly, her time at ArtRocks 24/7 Online TV & Radio as a Media/Marketing Intern allowed her to explore creative avenues within digital platforms, which has become increasingly relevant in her current roles.
Runa Takizawa's diverse educational background, rich professional experience, and her proactive approach to learning and leveraging market trends define her as a leader in branding and marketing strategies. Her commitment to excellence continues to drive her career forward, making her a significant figure in the industry, particularly in her contributions toward tobacco product innovation and consumer engagement.
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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
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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
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- 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.
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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.