Rand Duran

Technical Pre-Sales Leader

Technical Pre-sales Leader enabling enterprises to govern data and AI at scale. Focused on agentic AI, where traditional governance frameworks are falling short. Open to roles at the intersection of Pre-Sales, AI, and Governance.

rduran.contact@gmail.comlinkedin.com/in/randduranParker, COclarosolutions.ai

Areas of Expertise

Pre-Sales & GTM

Pre-Sales EngineeringExpansion & Renewal SellingGo-To-Market ExecutionPartners/Alliances

Technical

Agentic AI & AI GovernanceData Access Control & SecurityPrototyping (Cursor, Lovable, Claude Code)Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP)RAGMCPSQLDatabricksSnowflakeAtlassianSlackGitHub

Experience

  1. Claro Solutions

    June 2026 – Present

    Founder & Principal Solutions Consultant (Self-employed)

    Founder of Claro Solutions, an independent AI consulting practice helping companies automate workflows with AI agents. Focused on practical, high-impact automation rather than one-size-fits-all tooling.

  2. Trust3 AI by Privacera

    January 2026 – June 2026

    Senior Solutions Engineer (Remote)

    Drove technical wins across the full pre-sales cycle, from discovery through proof-of-value, with healthcare, financial services, and public sector clients on Databricks, Snowflake, and Starburst. Partnered with AWS, Azure, and GCP to optimize consumption and co-develop pipeline.

  3. Pentaho, a division of Hitachi Vantara

    January 2020 – October 2025

    Senior Technical Account Manager (Remote)

    Moved into a customer success role post-acquisition to retain and grow the Waterline Data customer base through the integration into Hitachi's portfolio. Led retention, expansion, and onboarding for enterprise accounts across the Americas, including a 10-month Data Catalog migration at one of the world's largest financial institutions, securing a multi-year renewal. Partnered with Sales on a "protect the base" campaign that preserved $4.2M in ARR across 100+ accounts.

  4. Waterline Data (acquired by Hitachi Vantara)

    August 2014 – January 2020

    Director, Sales Engineering (Remote)

    Built and led a six-person sales engineering team, driving the company's first $1M in SE-influenced revenue. Landed Fortune 500 clients including Starbucks, Kaiser Permanente, Honeywell, AIG, and McDonald's through targeted PoC engagements. Improved RFP response times by 50% and increased concurrent PoC capacity by ~40%. Supported the due diligence process for the acquisition by Hitachi Vantara in 2020.

  5. IBM

    May 2009 – August 2014

    Global Product Manager & Technical Sales Specialist (Remote)

    Product-managed IBM InfoSphere Discovery, driving roadmap, cross-portfolio integration, and licensing strategy. Enabled IBM's global sales force through training and enablement on InfoSphere Discovery, supporting a 25% increase in deal closure rates. Earned "Sales Eminence" and "100% Club" recognition annually.

  6. Exeros, Inc. (Acquired by IBM)

    July 2007 – May 2009

    Technical Pre-Sales (Remote)

    Led all technical pre-sales for a data discovery and governance workbench, delivering PoCs and presentations that won enterprise deals. Produced enablement materials and white papers that drove 30% improvement in post-sales adoption within the first year. Built trusted advisor relationships with client executives, consistently tying solutions to measurable business outcomes.

  7. Dish Network (Englewood, Colorado)

    January 2006 – July 2007

    Director, Data Warehouse

    Tapped by the CTO to lead a 50+ person data warehouse team spanning local and offshore specialists, managing multi-million-dollar budgets. Established a "follow-the-sun" support model across the full team, improving operational efficiency by 20%. Optimized ETL and reporting performance by 25% while maintaining all SLAs.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Symbolic Systems, Focus in Artificial Intelligence and eLearning — Stanford University