- Mikkelsen spent nearly 20 years at Red Hat across defense and global sales roles
- He led public sector businesses at Datadog and JFrog
- Anthropic’s $1 GSA OneGov price expires Oct. 31
Anthropic has hired Brian Mikkelsen as head of U.S. federal civilian go-to-market, adding a public sector sales leader as the company’s $1 pricing arrangement with the General Services Administration approaches expiration.
Mikkelsen announced the move Tuesday in a LinkedIn post, saying he will work alongside Thiyagu Ramasamy, who leads Anthropic’s U.S. public sector business, and Teresa Carlson, who heads its global public sector efforts.
Federal civilian agencies continue to weigh how to adopt commercial AI platforms. The Potomac Officers Club will host the 2026 FedCiv Summit on Oct. 29 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia, where government and industry leaders will discuss AI adoption, cloud and data infrastructure and cross-agency initiatives. Save your seat now.
What Experience Does Mikkelsen Bring to Anthropic?
Mikkelsen most recently spent eight months as vice president and general manager for U.S. public sector at JFrog. Before that, he held the same title at Datadog for three years, during which he built the company’s public-sector sales organization.
He spent nearly 20 years at Red Hat across two roles. From 2001 to 2015, he directed the company’s U.S. defense and aerospace segment, which he grew from near zero to more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue across programs, including Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, Distributed Common Ground System–Army, and Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then served six years as global vice president for revenue enablement and sales development, supporting the company’s growth through 2021.
Earlier in his career, Mikkelsen worked at Cisco as a major accounts manager and inside sales representative, and at IBM in its PC Direct business.
What Is Anthropic Doing in the Federal Market?
Anthropic’s OneGov agreement with GSA, which offers Claude for Government at $1 per user, runs through Oct. 31 after a one-month extension in September, FedScoop reported.
The company made Claude for Government generally available this month through a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program High environment, with Claude Code command-line access and Claude for Microsoft 365 entering early access.
Anthropic has also worked with the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration on a classifier that flags nuclear weapons queries, which the company said it deployed on a portion of Claude traffic.
Anthropic said Sunday it is committing 5 percent of its shares to a new public benefit fund, subject to stockholder approval, with an additional 2 percent added at the board’s discretion for every 50 percent increase in company value above a baseline. The company said the structure will bring roughly 20 percent of its shares toward public benefit uses when combined with founder and employee equity pledges.
