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Shoshanna Engel Lewis
Owner | Higher Ed & Athletics Consultant | Thought Partner
Shoshanna Engel Lewis is the founder and consultant at VH Consulting, where she specializes in higher education and athletics consulting. She describes herself as a thought partner dedicated to empowering individuals and organizations to make informed decisions. Her focus areas include enhancing athletic programs and supporting educational institutions in their strategic initiatives.
Engel Lewis has a background in athletics, having previously worked with Georgia Tech Athletics, which highlights her expertise in the intersection of education and sports. She actively shares insights and updates about her work on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, where she engages with a community interested in athletics and educational consulting.
In addition to her consulting work, Engel Lewis is known for her collaborative approach, often teaming up with other professionals to expand services related to athletics.123
Highlights
It's SHOTIME!
When Marvin Lewis wants to get my attention, he turns up his volume ever-so-slightly and says, "Shotime." It works EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Starting today I hope to catch your attention with a regular dose of SHOTIME!
Small things become big things. And big things can make a really huge impact. I encourage you to do the small things.
August 26 and 27 are a really important dates in my life. Nine years ago I did the coolest and maybe most impactful thing I've ever done. I still close my eyes and remember, in vivid detail, every part of that day.
The morning of August 26 itself was not very remarkable, but the people who led me there, the people we honored that day, and the story that followed are notable. Two really important people lost their battles with leukemia, but they also inspired me to join the NMDP registry. Q was larger than life and always good for a belly laugh and that big brother charm. Mandi Schwartz was quietly fierce and sneakily strong. When Mandi was diagnosed, the quickest way to support her was to join the registry. Q and Mandi couldn't beat it, but their respective fights inspire hope and their legacies reflect joy and impact.
Fast forward to 2015. Nothing prepared me for the overwhelming and indescribable feeling of opening a letter in the mail indicating I was a possible match. Copious amounts of communication, verification, and testing ensued and then, BOOM, I was headed to VA to shed some stimulated marrow cells.
My dad joined me for trip, which in retrospect was kismet. You see, August 26 is the birthday of his goddaughter who also fought and lost her battle with another nasty form of cancer. Becca's favorite candy was Starbursts. So there I sat in my Yale t-shirt eating Starbursts and harvesting bone marrow stem cells. The next day, those same cells made their way to MA where a 53 year-old man received them via transplant.
This series of small things - starting a marrow donor drive and swabbing my cheek - became big things. I am donor #38 of 100 and counting that have matched via Yale's annual Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive. Along the way we did other small things. We raised awareness and money. We cut and donated my hair. We amplified a cause. These small things turned into big things.
This story also has an incredible ending. On the ninth anniversary of his transplant, my recipient is THRIVING with his family by his side. He made it past his 'cure' date in large part because I did a small thing.
Not every small thing leads to sustenance of life, but that doesn't diminish their impact. The smile at someone in line at the grocery store. A quick text when you have someone on your mind. Making a donation to a meaningful cause. Amplifying a message.
Thank you to everyone who joined me in doing small things along the way on this particular journey. Your swabs, your engagement, your donations; all those small things made a huge impact.
Professional update:
I won’t bury the lede – following three incredibly rewarding years at Brown and a quiet transition this summer, I am officially launching VH Consulting!
With expertise in strategy, organizational efficacy, governance, and leadership development, I work with individuals and stakeholders across all levels of an organization to make stuff happen.
We are shaped in incredible ways by our experiences that tie together the people we connect with and the places and spaces we occupy. I’ve experienced an embarrassment of riches in all of these categories, especially during my professional evolution. I pursued a career in college athletics because so much was right about my own experience, but I also saw opportunity and so much room to grow. Though scope, breadth, and depth of experience increase over time, I am proud that my why – to unlock opportunity at the magical intersection of higher education and sport – remains at the core of who I am and what I do. And now what I plan to do is help people and organizations solve complex problems, develop innovative strategies, and engage in meaningful leadership and thought partnership to navigate the future.
I owe a debt of gratitude to so many and over time I hope to spotlight some of those people, places, and spaces that continue to shape me. I am immensely grateful to those who’ve stamped my professional passport and especially to those who continue to pour into me, those that took a risk on me, and those that model what I do – and don’t – want to be like when I grow up.
I cannot wait to discuss this new adventure and I am most definitely open to working with (most of) you. Message me or contact me at [email protected]. Let’s talk!
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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
- 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.
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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.
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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.
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