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Steve Vickers
Managing Disruptive Innovation in FinTech and Digital Services
Steve Vickers is the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of Pomelo Group, a Singapore-based payment infrastructure platform.12 He took on this role in April 2024, succeeding the company's co-founder Vincent Choi.2
Professional Background
Steve Vickers brings over 25 years of executive experience to his position at Pomelo.2 His career has been marked by significant achievements in the payments and technology industries:
Previous Roles::
- COO and Asia Managing Director at Paysend
- CEO of Thunes, a Singaporean fintech focused on cross-border mobile payments networks
- Instrumental in establishing Grab and Xiaomi as successful brands in Southeast Asia
Expertise
Vickers is known for his:
- Deep understanding of cross-border B2B payments in Southeast Asia
- Proven ability to build and grow successful venture-backed businesses
- Strong leadership in developing and attracting top talent
Appointment at Pomelo
Vickers was chosen to lead Pomelo Group into its next phase of growth. His appointment comes at a time when Pomelo has established itself as a trusted payment infrastructure provider for several leading organizations in Southeast Asia.2
Personal Information
- Based in Singapore for 15 years
- LinkedIn username: steve-vickers-028bb6163
Steve Vickers' extensive experience in the payments industry and his track record of success in the Southeast Asian market make him well-suited to lead Pomelo Group as it aims to become the leading payment infrastructure provider for financial institutions across the region.2
Highlights
I’m delighted to advise that I have accepted the role of CEO at Pomelo! Their Acquiring as a Service offering has clear product-market fit, evidenced by the growing customer base in several countries in Asia.
In just the first few weeks I have already attended a customer launch event at Dialog Finance in Sri Lanka. I look forward to celebrating many more over the coming years. The mission here is clear: build on the early successes the team has achieved and help the organisation scale.
Thanks and respect to Vincent Choi who remains with Pomelo on our Advisory Board. I will continue to seek your advice and learn from your wisdom.
25 years ago I attended the McKinsey Introductory Training Program (ITP), as required for every junior McKinsey consultant. I was reminded of this while watching the latest John Oliver ‘Last Week Tonight’ show, which focused on McKinsey & Company. The show took aim at McKinsey and, as it usually does, hit it’s target directly.
For me this show was poignant, not only because it skewered one of my previous employers, but also because it featured a short clip of an interview with my late wife Kari, who was a McKinsey consultant. If you watched the show, she is the one describing the McKinsey recruiting process. That interview was recorded shortly after we both attended the ITP in 1998. Kari passed away in 2019, so it was very touching to see this video clip of her younger self.
In summary (in true McKinsey style): 1. John Oliver is one of the funniest and smartest comedians around. He manages to nail many institutions, individuals, and governments holding them to account in a manner that is informative and entertaining. 2. McKinsey does great work for many reputable clients and is responsible for helping many businesses and governments improve their operations. It has also, unfortunately, chosen to work with some disreputable clients and deservedly should be chastised for this. It’s preference for confidentiality and discretion, while understandable and defensible when dealing with corporate strategy, is not a good look when McKinsey is engaged by oppressive regimes or companies operating in a moral or ethical grey area. 3. For recent MBA grads, McKinsey was (and remains, as far as I am aware) one of the best places to develop your career. They select smart people, train them very well, and provide an early opportunity to tackle interesting business problems.
I greatly enjoyed my own McKinsey experience, and personally did not serve any clients operating in that ethical or moral grey area. It gave me a great start in my professional career, and moreover introduced me to the person who I would later marry – seven years after we met at the McKinsey ITP.
And if you want to watch the show https://lnkd.in/gmjrptRz
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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.
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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.
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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.