# Dan O'Connell

> Dan O'Connell is the CEO of Front, the AI-powered customer communications platform used by 9,000+ companies. A veteran of Google, AdRoll, and Dialpad - where he helped scale ARR from $30M to $200M+ - O'Connell joined Front as CEO in May 2024, succeeding co-founder Mathilde Collin, with a mandate to drive the company's next phase of AI-led growth. He is a UC Berkeley Haas MBA, Santa Clara University alumnus, Ironman triathlete, and a recurring voice in the conversation about how AI will reshape human work rather than replace it.

- **Role:** CEO at Front
- **Organizations:** Front, Dialpad, TalkIQ, AdRoll, Google
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MBA, University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business, Undergraduate, Santa Clara University
- **Known for:** Scaled Dialpad from $30M to $200M+ ARR as Chief Revenue Officer, Led TalkIQ through successful acquisition by Dialpad, Built Google AdWords inside sales organization from early days under Sheryl Sandberg

## Career timeline

- **2003** — Joined Google at age 22; built AdWords inside sales org under Sheryl Sandberg
- **2003-2012** — Led New Business Sales for Google AdWords; expanded inside sales team nationally
- **2011-2014** — Completed MBA at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
- **2012** — Joined AdRoll as VP of Sales; scaled sales team past $100M in revenue
- **~2008-2018** — Founded and led TalkIQ, a Salesforce Ventures-backed real-time speech recognition company for sales and service teams
- **2018** — TalkIQ acquired by Dialpad; O'Connell joined Dialpad post-acquisition
- **2018-2021** — Chief Revenue Officer at Dialpad; drove ARR from $30M to $200M+
- **2021-2024** — Chief Strategy Officer and Chief AI Officer at Dialpad; launched proprietary LLM and generative AI features
- **2024-03** — Announced as incoming CEO of Front, succeeding co-founder Mathilde Collin
- **2024-05** — Officially became CEO of Front

## Achievements

- Scaled Dialpad from $30M to $200M+ ARR as Chief Revenue Officer
- Led TalkIQ through successful acquisition by Dialpad
- Built Google AdWords inside sales organization from early days under Sheryl Sandberg
- Launched Dialpad's proprietary large language model and monthly AI feature releases
- Appointed first outside CEO of Front, a $1.7B unicorn, in 2024
- Drove AdRoll sales team to $100M+ in revenue as VP of Sales
- Completed Ironman triathlons
- Front reached $100M ARR milestone under his leadership

## Latest updates

- **2024-05** — Officially became CEO of Front, succeeding co-founder Mathilde Collin who moved to Executive Chair
- **2024-03** — Announced as incoming CEO of Front by BusinessWire press release
- **2024-06** — Featured on Uncharted Podcast discussing career journey from Google to Dialpad to Front
- **2024-05** — Appeared on podcast 'Rebuilding Front for the AI Era' discussing AI strategy
- **2025-01** — Front reported at $100M ARR milestone with 9,000+ company customers
- **2025-03** — Featured in YouTube interview 'The AI Reinvention Test: Front CEO Dan O'Connell on Building for the Future, Not the Past'

## Links

- Website: https://front.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/droconnell
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/droconnell
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frontapp

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/dan-o-connell
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-27