It was with great sadness that I heard Claire Dessaux, Managing Vice President, Research Content and Delivery at Gartner, died recently.
Claire struggled with health issues off and on in recent years, but she was still too young to leave us, and her premature death robs the world of a steadfast friend, reliable co-worker, and cheerful presence for those who knew her.
For the analyst relations community, it’s worth taking a moment to mourn her passing even for those who didn’t know her, as we lost a key advocate in Claire. In her role at Gartner, Claire pushed for more transparency, predictability, and communications with vendors. Longtime, experienced Gartner analysts would grumble about how Gartner management continues to mechanize research, making it increasingly templatized and fungible, but Claire understood the need for consistency, scalability, and getting away from the “prima donna analyst” that plagued Gartner pre-Gene Hall.
This was likely due to the fact that prior to joining Gartner, Claire had spent nearly a decade in analyst relations at one of the industry’s leading software vendors. Claire knew what it was like to be at a vendor and arguing with the world’s most powerful market researcher. She deeply understood vendor concerns and helped institute reforms that improved Gartner and bettered vendor relations. It’s telling that when you look at her LinkedIn profile, analyst relations was the first thing she put in her personal description. She loved the art and science of analyst relations and was a credit to our profession.
Gartner had her last, but she was one of ours.
Peggy O’Neill (@PegONeill, LinkedIn) is Vice President, Industry Analyst Relations at Informatica
Peggy thank you for this beautiful tribute. This is such sad news. I knew Claire for many years at Oracle prior to joining her AR Team. She was a good boss to me. I really appreciate her giving me that opportunity on her team all those years back.
Thanks for sharing this devastating news Peggy. I knew and worked with Claire for about 14 years, dating to when I worked at SAP and covered NetWeaver and she worked for you at Oracle and covered OFM. We worked with all the same analysts and shared all the same concerns. As our careers progressed, we worked together more and more. Claire was instrumental in developing and implementing regularity and process with much of Gartner’s most important work with the AR community, especially MQs. We had dinner in the spring here in the DC area and spoke about our careers and shared some ideas, hopes and dreams. Through her leadership as an AR professional on the vendor side and her subsequent work within Gartner, Claire–despite her size–was a giant in our part of the industry. I am stunned and saddened.
Claire seemed to get tough assignments as a matter of course: explaining Oracle to analysts, explaining Gartner to tech firms….neither was ever easy. She handled both with grace, often juggling difficult personalities on both sides and steering situations to resolution. She was a friend and a colleague I will miss mightily. And hard to replace. RIP, Claire..