Rich O'Connell

Judge
DISC Type : Dc

Head of Alliances at Anthropic

Mountain View, California, United States

Overview

Rich is the Head of Alliances at Anthropic, where he builds strategic partnerships for AI systems. With a background at Meta, Box, and Atlassian, and education from Dublin City University and Harvard, he has a proven track record of driving global ecosystem growth. Colleagues describe him as strategic, pragmatic, and collaborative.

Outside of his main role, Rich is passionate about fostering new technology ventures. He serves as a mentor for SaaS companies at Techstars and is an active angel investor in multiple startups, including a successful exit with Tenyxs acquisition by Salesforce.

He co-authored a book chapter on "The psychology of new media, " exploring user perceptions of online privacy and risk.

Personality Overview

Generally Skeptic

Features Driven

Demanding

They like to act fast and expect others to do the same.  They like to be in a position where they can control the conversation and terms. They respond well to strong and respectful communication.

Topics They Care About

AI Go-to-Market
As Head of Alliances at Anthropic, he focuses on bringing AI like Claude to enterprise customers through partners and building joint go-to-market strategies with leading SIs.
Ecosystem Strategy
He has extensive experience building co-sell and marketplace programs with major cloud partners and has advised companies like Pipedrive on their ecosystem and organizational structure.
Supporting Startups
He actively mentors the next generation of SaaS companies at Techstars and is an angel investor in several early-stage tech businesses.

Media Appearances

Rich has no verified media appearances

Work History

2-2025
Head of Alliances at Anthropic
9-2023 - 5-2024
Advisor at Pipedrive
9-2023 - 5-2024
Advisor at Redactive
4-2023 - 4-2025
Strategic Partnerships and Business Development at Box
6-2022 - 10-2023
Head of Ecosystem Growth (3P and Marketplace) at Atlassian

Education

1998 - 2002
Bachelor of Science - BS from Dublin City University
2019 - 2019
Program on Negotiation from Harvard Business School Executive Education

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 24 Location : Mountain View, California, United States Job Level : Mid-senior Designation : Head of Alliances at Anthropic
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Insights For Selling To Rich

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Make sure that you circle back fast on any action items, it wins their trust
  • Objectively showcase the impact that your product creates
  • Be respectful but crisp

DONT's

  • Do not back off when challenged, respond with a confident, objective answer instead
  • Do not hesitate from asking counter questions, just avoid challenging their authority
  • Avoid being too verbose

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Rich is

  • Confidence in impact is paramount to them, followed by a sense of achievement and ROI.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Rich

  • If they are not convinced, they will have no hesitation in telling you the same.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Rich move?

  • They can take decisions very fast if you manage to convince them.
  • Can Rich take some risk or not?

  • The risks don’t matter much to them.

You And Rich

Personality Compatibility


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