Rich O'Connell

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We're hiring! https://www.anthropic.com/careers

Helping the next generation of SaaS companies find PMF.

Investor in Autio, Callity, Evernow, Sketchnote, Primer, Zelo (the AI PM). Exits: Tenyx (acquired by Salesforce).

Supporting Box's co-sell and marketplace programs with our Cloud Partners.

Advising on Ecosystem strategy and organization structure.

Advising on roadmap and GTM.

I led the charge in forging strategic technology alliances that transformed product partnerships, integrations, and commercial growth initiatives, significantly boosting Atlassian's business performance. This included driving customer growth, enhancing retention, and increasing up-selling and platform adoption. I played a key role in scoping, prioritizing, and fostering cross-functional collaboration among multidisciplinary teams, which fueled growth for partners across the Marketplace and Strategic Platform Partnerships. By engaging directly with C-Suite executives and Senior Vice Presidents at Microsoft, Zoom, and Slack, I strengthened strategic alliances and elevated Atlassian's brand as a leader in Teamwork and Collaboration. Below listed are some of my achievements within this role: * Managed entire Atlassian alliance with Microsoft, covering M365, GitHub, LinkedIn, and Azure. * Drove a 20% YoY growth in Marketplace GMV by contributing to ecosystem growth experiments. * Contributed to product innovation as a member of steering committee for Atlassian's new product incubation group. * Enhanced KPIs/customer satisfaction by building and launching over 100 new/updated cloud integrations with partners. * Secured over $5M ARR through partnership agreements with Slack, Microsoft, Snyk, and Zoom, with projected growth to exceed $70M by 2026. * Supported successful acquisition of HALP and strategic investments in Miro and Snyk by leading a program with Partnerships, Corp. Dev., and Product leaders to establish a Build-Buy-Partner approach.

Led a team of Product Managers building Enterprise Sales Technology. Our goal was to drive global sales performance by scaling sales technology, analytics and processes. We worked to help reps sell easier, and smarter, at scale by delivering solutions that helped to unlock their full potential.

I was instrumental in establishing the Channel team for Ads partners across EMEA. I led a team of 10, guiding them through the successful management of partnership operations, and implemented essential internal tools, policies, portals, and playbooks. I also crafted and executed strategic initiatives for the company’s largest revenue segments, setting program criteria, driving substantial revenue growth, and creating detailed roadmaps. Additionally, I defined quality and success benchmarks that became the standard for future programs. Below listed are some of my achievements within this role: * Facilitated product team alignment by defining roadmaps, building integrations, and addressing partner needs. * Improved cost-efficiency and operational performance by leading the partner-ops team, enhancing CSAT and SLAs. * Achieved 130% YoY revenue growth with top 5 European strategic partners, resulting in over $100M in annual high-quality API revenue. * Oversaw successful full lifecycle management, including identification, evaluation, onboarding, enablement, and growth of strategic partnerships. * Drove regional growth and accelerated product adoption with a $12M annual MDF budget through development of effective financial incentive programs. * Identified new partnership opportunities and refined strategies through comprehensive analysis of market trends, customer needs, and competitive landscapes. * Established API strategy and adoption goals by collaborating with product leadership on EAP approach, documentation, developer support, and managing breaking changes.

Achieved 130% YoY growth by working collaboratively with major European strategic partners to shape strategic direction, prioritize product roadmaps, and invest resources.