Siddiq Zaman has joined Anthropic as Head of Partnerships for India. He confirmed the appointment on LinkedIn, where he said he would be focused on building and growing the company’s partner ecosystem in the country.
Zaman spent the last six-plus years at ServiceNow, most recently as Senior Director of Global Partnerships and Channels. Before that, he ran Global System Integrator relationships at AWS and held senior alliances roles at Salesforce and HPE. That’s a fairly specific combination – hyperscaler, enterprise SaaS, and now frontier AI – and it’s exactly the profile that makes sense for what Anthropic needs to do next in India.
Who Is Siddiq Zaman?
Zaman brings over a decade of experience building and scaling enterprise partnerships across some of the world’s most recognised technology platforms. Before joining Anthropic, he served as Senior Director – Global Partnerships and Channels at ServiceNow, where he spent more than six years.Â
Before that, he was Business Head – Global System Integrators at Amazon Web Services (AWS), managing large-scale enterprise transformation and partner ecosystems. He has also held alliances and partnerships leadership roles at Salesforce and HPE.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the move, Zaman described Anthropic as doing “some of the most important and fascinating work in AI today” and said he was “incredibly energised” about the opportunity to grow the company’s India partner ecosystem.
Why India, Why Now
Anthropic opened its Bengaluru office earlier this year. At the time, the company said India had become Claude’s second-largest market globally. The usage is concentrated in enterprise engineering, application modernisation, and production-scale AI – not just experimentation.
A dedicated partnerships head for India is a natural next step. The role of system integrators and implementation partners matters a lot here. Enterprises don’t just buy access to an AI model. They need someone to help them integrate it into existing systems, train their teams, manage governance, and keep it running. That work happens through partners – GSIs, cloud resellers, regional consultancies. Zaman has spent his career managing exactly those relationships.
What This Means for the Talent Market
This hire is worth paying attention to, even if you’re not in the AI industry directly.
Senior enterprise leaders with alliances and partnerships experience are increasingly moving into AI-native companies. This used to be a one-way street – people moved from startups into established firms for stability. That’s changing. Anthropic, at its current stage, is not a startup in the conventional sense, but it’s not a legacy enterprise software company either. Choosing to join it over continuing at a ServiceNow or similar platform is a deliberate bet.
For talent and HR leaders, the question is: what kind of workplace attracts this kind of person? Zaman’s career shows a pattern of building ecosystems at scale – AWS, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and now Anthropic. These aren’t accidental moves. They reflect someone who wants to be where the action is, and right now, that’s AI.
Indian professionals watching this should note: global AI companies are no longer staffing India from their Singapore or APAC offices. They’re putting dedicated, senior leaders on the ground here with real mandates. That has career implications for anyone in enterprise sales, partnerships, or business development.
The Broader Shift
A few years ago, “AI roles” in India mostly meant engineering – data scientists, ML engineers, and researchers. The leadership layer is now following. Country heads, partnerships directors, policy leads, enterprise sales leaders – these positions are being created and filled.
That’s what maturity in a market looks like. India went from being an AI consumption market to a strategic priority for the companies building AI. The talent ecosystem is catching up.
Zaman’s appointment at Anthropic is one example. It won’t be the last.
