Front Welcomes New Chief Executive Officer to Spearhead Next Phase of Growth and AI Innovation

Customer Service industry veteran and strategic AI leader Dan O’Connell joins Front as it takes on legacy help desk software ripe for disruption

Mathilde Collin and Dan O’Connell. Courtesy of Front.

March 25, 2024 12:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Front, the modern customer service platform, today announced that co-founder Mathilde Collin is stepping into the role of Executive Chair of Front and has appointed Dan O’Connell to take on the role of Chief Executive Officer to drive Front’s next phase of growth.

“Front started as a team inbox, and has now evolved into a modern customer service platform. It’s become an essential part of the day-to-day operations of over 8,500 companies, as shown by the fact that over 80% of our monthly active users are also daily active users,” said Mathilde Collin, co-founder and Executive Chair at Front. “Our goal is to build on this momentum, leveraging AI to raise the bar for the entire customer service industry. Dan is the best person to take the reins for Front’s next chapter: on top of his deep AI expertise, his proven success in the customer service space and with scaling technology businesses make him the ideal person for the job.”

O’Connell joined Dialpad via a successful acquisition of TalkIQ, where he served as Chief Executive Officer and helped define the conversational intelligence market for sales and service teams. At Dialpad, he served as the CRO, overseeing the company’s sales and support teams, and scaling the business to surpass $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) before transitioning to the Chief AI & Strategy Officer role. Under O’Connell’s leadership, Dialpad became one of the few AI-first businesses that own their entire AI stack, including in-house speech recognition and NLP models to a proprietary LLM trained on six billion minutes of enterprise conversations to power summarization, categorization, and automation features.

“Front is already the platform of choice for companies looking to offer exceptional service. By leaning even harder into AI-enhanced technology, Front has the potential to become the uncontested leader,” said Dan O’Connell. “I’m honored to join this talented group and help build the most innovative customer service product in the market.”

Front is the modern customer service platform that helps companies delight their customers, engage their teams, and build stronger businesses. The company has witnessed resounding success in recent years: achieving “Unicorn” status after its Series D raise in 2022; acquiring Windsor.io to accelerate its AI roadmap; and being named on the 2023 Forbes Cloud100 list for the second year in a row.

“With her vision and dedication, Mathilde has turned Front into a mission-critical platform for thousands of businesses that differentiate on their quality of service. Furthermore, she accomplished this while building an award-winning company culture where employees thrive,” said Bryan Schreier, partner at Sequoia Capital. “I look forward to partnering with Dan on Front’s next phase of growth and innovation as he builds on the incredible foundation that Mathilde established.”

To learn more about Front, visit www.front.com.

About Front

Front is the modern customer service platform that helps companies delight their customers, engage their teams, and build stronger businesses. We’ve reimagined the help desk for real-time team collaboration across every customer communication channel, then powered it all up with AI and automation to resolve issues and help teams work faster. Customers get exceptional service whether they’re looking for a simple, instant answer, or personalized help on their most complex issues — and you get the analytics and insights your business needs to optimize your customer experience. Over 8,500 businesses of all shapes and sizes, from ClickUp to Branch Insurance, Echo Global Logistics to Reed & Mackay rely on Front to deliver game-changing service that wins and retains customers for life. To learn more, visit www.front.com.