Equity Programs, Strategy and Analytics Lead

About the Team

OpenAI’s People team aims to hire, engage, and retain world-class talent to safely build and deploy universally beneficial Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The HR team, a vital subset of the People team, supports a diverse group of scientists, engineers, and business professionals, with expertise in employee relations, immigration, compensation and benefits, learning and development, project management, and more.

About the Role

We’re looking for a highly analytical and strategically minded Equity Programs, Strategy and Analytics Lead to join OpenAI’s People team. This is a high-impact individual contributor role at the intersection of compensation, corporate finance, and people strategy focused on shaping and supporting OpenAI’s equity and executive compensation programs.

You’ll partner closely with senior leaders across Legal, Finance, and People to help drive decisions around equity design, budgeting and forecasts, and M&A integration. In this role you’ll build models, develop strategies, and lead complex analyses while making key decisions that influence how we attract, retain, and reward world-class talent. 

Whether you come from a compensation background or strategic finance/FP&A, you’ll thrive in this role if you bring a sharp quantitative toolkit, strong business judgment, and a desire to architect systems that are both financially sound and aligned with OpenAI’s values.

This role reports to our Head of Equity Program Strategy and Executive Compensation.

Key Responsibilities:

Equity and Executive Compensation Strategy

• Design and evolve long-term incentives, including new hire, refresh, promotion, and recognition programs.

• Conduct compensation benchmarking analyses for executive and mission-critical roles; evaluate peer group data and pay positioning.

• Build and maintain robust equity models (e.g., grant size calculators, share pool forecasts, scenario planning).

• Advise on equity philosophy and policy development, including eligibility criteria, vesting schedules, and vehicle design (e.g., RSUs vs. options).

• Evaluate the impact of valuation changes, recapitalizations, and market dynamics on program sustainability.

Analytics & Financial Modeling

• Build and maintain dashboards and reporting tools that track the effectiveness of equity programs against key outcomes such as retention, dilution, hiring plan alignment, and cost efficiency.

• Create cost-of-talent frameworks and conduct sensitivity analyses across geographies, levels, job ladders, and hiring plans.

• Partner with Finance on forecasting stock-based compensation expense to ensure alignment with budgeting and financial reporting needs.

• Build equity-related models for strategic scenarios, including tender offers, liquidity planning, and headcount growth.

M&A Integration & Compensation Committee Support

• Lead compensation and equity modeling for M&A scenarios, including conversion mechanics and retention planning.

• Own equity due diligence for M&A, partnering with Legal and Finance to assess plan structures, validate key assumptions, and ensure smooth integration post-close.

• Draft high-quality Compensation Committee materials including exec pay proposals, equity usage forecasts, and program impact assessments.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Legal, Finance, Total Rewards, Recruiting, and HRBPs to align on plan design, equity mechanics, budgeting, and employee communications.

• Collaborate with internal systems and analytics teams to deliver scalable, automated compensation tools and workflows.

• Drive education and enablement efforts to build compensation fluency among People partners, recruiters, and business leaders.

We’re Seeking:

• 7+ years of experience in compensation, finance, or people analytics, ideally with exposure to equity compensation and/or total rewards design.

• Strong financial modeling skills and comfort navigating ambiguity in high-growth or fast-evolving environments.

• Experience analyzing complex datasets and turning insights into business decisions.

• Advanced Excel or Google Sheets proficiency; SQL and/or analytics tools (Python, R, Tableau) is a plus.

• Clear, persuasive communication skills; able to simplify complex quantitative topics for diverse audiences.

• High integrity, ownership, and attention to detail in handling sensitive data.

Workplace & Location