Jerry Petersen 
- Six-time Wash100 Award winner Teresa Carlson has joined Anthropic as global head of public sector
- Carlson, whose professional experience includes leadership roles at Microsoft and AWS, is the first person to take on the title at Anthropic
- Carlson said what drew her to Anthropic was the importance the company placed on collaborating with the government when it comes to new technologies
Federal IT industry veteran Teresa Carlson has been named the inaugural global head of public sector at artificial intelligence company Anthropic, FedScoop reported Tuesday. The role puts Carlson in charge of public sector strategy at the company, which the six-time Wash100 Award winner said she joined because of the priority it places on working with government leaders early on when it comes to navigating new technologies.
“AI is changing how we work and how we live, and that change has to happen in collaboration with governments,” Carlson added in a statement shared with FedScoop.
For her part, Anthropic Head of Americas Kate Jensen said in a statement reported by Nextgov/FCW, “Few people are as trusted across government and industry as Teresa, or understand how governments adopt new technology as well. We’re fortunate to have her leading this work for us in the U.S. and worldwide.”
Who Is Teresa Carlson?
Carlson brings to her new role decades of industry experience. She joins Anthropic from investment firm General Catalyst, where she most recently served as president of General Catalyst Institute, which she also founded. GCI works to shape policies concerning various issues, including AI, by partnering with startups and policymakers.
Carlson also held leadership roles at various other organizations, including at software company Splunk, where she served as president and chief growth officer; at Microsoft, where she held the position of vice president of federal sales and operations from 2000 through 2010, then took on the role of corporate vice president when she returned to the company briefly in 2022; and at Amazon Web Services, where she founded and led the company’s worldwide public sector unit as vice president. That role eventually expanded to encompass financial services, energy services, telecommunications, and aerospace and satellite industry business units.
Further commenting on her latest role, Carlson said on LinkedIn that at Anthropic, she feels she can continue the work of “putting the best technology available into the hands of those who serve the public” but noted the novelty of AI, saying, “[something] this powerful and this different requires us to move with both urgency and deliberation. And AI leadership by the United States, exercised alongside our allies and democratic partners, will shape the future of how work is done and how government serves its people.”
“With that ahead of us, I’m looking forward to working in partnership with government leaders, customers, partners, and my colleagues to support their AI transformation efforts,” she added.
How Were the Access Restrictions to Anthropic’s AI Models Resolved?
Carlson’s appointment as global head of Anthropic’s public sector business comes on the heels of the lifting of export controls imposed by the U.S. on two of Anthropic’s AI models. The controls, imposed by the Department of Commerce, limited access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 due to concerns they could be used to enable jailbreak techniques.
The issue triggered weeks of negotiations, resulting in multiple commitments by Anthropic to better coordinate with the U.S. government, including by providing government partners expanded early access to test models and safeguards before they are deployed, and by accelerating notifications of significant jailbreaks or misuse patterns, along with sharing of updated safeguards and threat intelligence.
Anthropic also said it was working with Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other partners on a proposed shared framework for assessing AI jailbreak severity. The company is also launching a program that would allow external security researchers to submit potential jailbreak findings for review.
