John O'Connor joined the Department of State as a Franklin Fellow in the Bureau of Resource Management. He helped transform the way the Department and the private sector work together in an effort to imbed relevant private sector perspectives and methods in appropriate areas of Department management. John was a Franklin Fellow with RM from October 2008 to May 2009.

Most recently John worked as a manager in Ernst & Young's Advisory Services practice. He was responsible for managing a wide range of projects for multinational corporations, including financial and operational audits, process improvement reviews, and risk assessments. During his eight years at Ernst & Young, John focused particularly on risks relating to contractual agreements and helped to build Ernst & Young's Contract Risk Services practice globally. John has worked in over 25 countries around the world and lived in the United Kingdom while on assignment.

Prior to joining Ernst & Young, John graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business with a B.S. in Business Administration and a minor in Anthropology.