Partner Operations Lead

About the team

The Partnerships team at OpenAI drives double-digit impact on the company’s most important priorities through high-quality deals, scalable programs, and platforms. The team works highly cross-functionally with product, legal, finance, and leadership teams, acting as a small but high-leverage group. To scale effectively, we need operational excellence: lightweight processes, clear communication, and consistent team learning.

About the role

We are seeking an experienced Program Manager to work closely with the Head of Global Partnerships to drive key strategic and operational efforts within our commercial and partnerships organization. This role is about making the team sharper every week - ensuring priorities are clear, processes are efficient, and the rest of the company understands what we do and how to work with us. You will drive the operations that make the team more effective, visible, and impactful.

Success in this role requires exceptional program management skills, the ability to quickly navigate ambiguity, strong business acumen / produce sense, and a talent for aligning diverse stakeholders toward clear, achievable goals.

This role is based in our San Francisco HQ. We operate on a hybrid work model with three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance.

In this role, you'll:

• Run the team rhythm: lead weekly meetings, set agendas, capture follow-ups, and keep Airtable and trackers current

• Drive planning & reviews: run quarterly OKRs, strategy sessions, post-mortems, and deal reviews; ensure lessons compound over time

• Communicate clearly: draft and polish team updates (weekly, BSLT, SLT), manage the Partnerships intranet, keep internal and external materials crisp and current

• Enable execution: prep and brief principal on priorities, escalate risks early, and ensure decisions have the right pre-work and follow-through

• Drive a culture of learning: post-mortems, deal reviews, and shared best practices, organize offsites, and cross-functional sprints

• Be a force multiplier: spot gaps, act immediately, and reduce wasted cycles by simplifying and aligning

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 5-8+ years in program management, biz ops, product ops, or CoS roles

• Bring discipline to process without over-engineering - minimal viable process

• Communicate with clarity and brevity, whether summarizing decisions, writing updates, or ghostwriting comms

• Have high EQ and judgment: know when to push, when to simplify, when to escalate

• Enjoy enabling others’ success and building team capacity, not just driving your own projects

• Like building strong, long-lasting relationships, have a positive attitude

• Thrive in fast-moving environments and stay calm under change

• Have exceptional work ethic with an ability to proactively prioritize, lead, and manage workload.

• Are passionate about technology, artificial intelligence, and its transformative impact on global business and society.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of