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Valerie Williams
Founder & Managing Partner at Converge Firm
Professional Background
Valerie L. Williams is a dedicated advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with a reputable background in both corporate leadership and strategic advisory roles. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Converge Firm, Valerie leads a team that specializes in designing and implementing DEI strategies that enable organizations to drive systemic change in the workplace. Under her guidance, Converge strives to address equity issues at scale, fundamentally reshaping how organizations approach diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Throughout her illustrious career, Valerie has held several prestigious positions that highlight her expertise in DEI, human resources, and organizational management. Notably, she served as the Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity at Stripe, a role that positioned her at the helm of crafting inclusive practices in one of the leading tech companies globally. Additionally, Valerie built her foundational knowledge working with Airbnb, first as a recruiter, and later ascending to the role of Senior Manager for Diversity Programs. These positions allowed her to implement and oversee significant initiatives that enhanced workplace culture and inclusivity, making her a sought-after consultant in the DEI space.
Valerie's illustrious career also extends to notable advisory roles at various organizations, including DiVerity PBC, Passbase, Accord, Almanac, Seed&Spark, and Community.com. Her strategic insights and deep understanding of organizational behavior have proven invaluable, helping these companies create meaningful diversity strategies.
Education and Achievements
Valerie L. Williams's academic journey laid a strong groundwork for her impressive career. She earned her Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Organizations and Management, with a focus on Leadership, from Emory University's Goizueta Business School, known for cultivating innovative business leaders. Additionally, she participated in an exchange program at ESADE Business School, further broadening her international perspective on business practices and management techniques.
Before embarking on her MBA, Valerie completed her Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the renowned Georgia Institute of Technology. This technical background empowers her to analyze systems and processes meticulously, an essential skill as she forges paths for organizations looking to improve their DEI efforts.
Valerie's pursuit of education and continuous learning demonstrates her commitment to professional growth and the importance of linking education with practical application. Her expertise has influenced various sectors and has brought attention to the critical nature of DEI in modern workplaces.
Achievements
Valerie's career is marked by numerous achievements that underscore her role as a leader in the DEI field. As the head of inclusion and diversity at a tech giant like Stripe, Valerie implemented innovative policies leading to improved representation and inclusivity, making substantial progress in enhancing workplace culture.
In her role with Airbnb, she was instrumental in crafting and executing DEI frameworks that created a more inclusive environment for employees and customers alike. Her early role as a recruiter also emphasized the importance of sourcing talent from diverse backgrounds, thereby enriching the company’s culture amid an evolving industry.
Valerie's advisory roles across multiple organizations have further solidified her reputation as a thought leader in the DEI space, where her strategic input has fostered holistic changes within industries. The impact of her work encourages conversations around equity and inclusion at all levels of an organization.
Valerie L. Williams exemplifies a commitment to fostering inclusive workplaces through thoughtful leadership and innovative DEI strategies. Her extensive career and profound educational background serve as a beacon of inspiration for organizations seeking to transform their workplace culture and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion at all levels.
Highlights
Calling all California investors! Join me, Alexandria Spiva and Rachel Bonds tomorrow for a FREE webinar as we discuss the implications of SB 54 (shoutout to the fam Marquesa Finch for spearheading this bill).
With California's groundbreaking SB54 law mandating diversity data reporting for VCs, VCs have a unique opportunity to stand out as a champion of inclusion and gain a competitive edge.
Bring your compliance questions, share with a friend, and register below.
https://lnkd.in/eFXzmRkY
I greatly appreciate the time I had last year to reset and rest. It’s been awhile and I am excited to share a few updates and reconnect with you all.
First, a few very special and very cool professional updates. I recently had the opportunity and privilege to serve as a mentor to a cohort of founders in Pharrell’s Black Ambition program. What an amazing program and collective of entrepreneurs and mentors! Even though I was a mentor, I learned so much from my cohort and have been greatly enriched by the community. Please continue to support this program and send founders their way.
I have also joined Soho House & Co's Inclusivity Board where I have the honor of serving with other incredible and dynamic change makers around the world. Collectively we aim to help shape the experience, programming, and access at the houses. To that end, one of the programs I want to bring to your attention is the Soho Fellows Program supporting creatives from underrepresented or disenfranchised communities who are facing financial barriers to accessing the houses. Reach out if you want to learn more about the program!
https://lnkd.in/gZJbVAry
https://lnkd.in/gztPXQq4
Lastly, I want to use this opportunity to reintroduce my consulting firm, Converge Firm. Since 2019, we have worked with over 70 clients on a variety of DEI-related projects, and no governor, senator, or president is going to stop us from redesigning workplaces where everyone can thrive. Don’t let the misinformation and rhetoric fool you - DEI is not dead. It’s evolving. If you’re curious or stuck on how to help your organization in this evolution, we are available to help guide you.
https://lnkd.in/guwp5CK2
I welcome the opportunity to connect and collaborate! Below are specific areas that are lighting me up:
-> Providing support and care for the practitioners who continue to lend their skills, talents and time -> Advising organizations aiming to authentically implement DEI practices and principles -> Curating collaborative spaces and coalitions to plan for the evolution and preservation of DEI -> Supporting efforts around collective liberation to end all forms of oppression
Sending love and light always, Valerie
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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.