Procurement Project Management Office Lead

About the Team

OpenAI’s Finance team is building scalable infrastructure that protects company resources while enabling bold, responsible growth. Procurement—spanning Strategic Sourcing, Purchasing, Extended Workforce, and Travel & Expense (T&E)—owns the full lifecycle from policy to tools to operations. We’re transforming how OpenAI works with the world by making it easier, safer, and faster to engage external partners. Our mission reduces friction, protects the business, and empowers every team to thrive.

About the Role

This role is part of the Procurement Center of Excellence (COE), where we build the systems, governance, and cross-functional programs that enable Procurement to scale effectively. You will serve as the strategic program manager for procurement-wide initiatives—tracking delivery across sourcing, purchasing, expense, card, and workforce programs while maintaining a centralized view of milestones, risks, and dependencies.

You’ll drive quarterly planning, enforce project hygiene, manage cross-functional coordination, and accelerate the delivery of high-impact operational initiatives. You will also own the performance, governance, and integration of outsourced Procurement services—including BPO partnerships and contingent workforce delivery. You’ll define engagement standards, monitor SLAs, and serve as the connective tissue between external providers and internal stakeholders to ensure service quality and accountability.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Run centralized program management for procurement-wide initiatives — spanning Strategic Sourcing, P2P, T&E, Corporate Card, and Extended Workforce.

• Manage outsourced procurement services (e.g., BPO providers, contingent workforce vendors) — including day-to-day performance tracking, SLA enforcement, and quarterly business reviews.

• Drive quarterly planning and delivery, identifying critical dependencies, execution risks, and resource needs across procurement verticals.

• Lead procurement governance rituals — including intake triage, weekly status reviews, leadership updates, and cross-functional escalations.

• Partner cross-functionally with Procurement Systems, Legal, and Accounting to implement operational changes (e.g., policy updates, tooling enhancements, automation workflows).

• Track program milestones and KPIs to assess performance, unblock execution, and communicate impact to stakeholders.

• Coordinate change enablement — including communications, documentation, training, and rollout plans to drive adoption of new policies or tools.

• Maintain centralized documentation and playbooks that support cross-functional procurement programs, vendor oversight, and COE best practices.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Believe great infrastructure accelerates great work — and take pride in building scaffolding that helps others move faster with clarity and control.

• See structure and governance not as constraints, but as tools for scalable decision-making and responsible growth.

• Approach vendors and BPO partners as extensions of the team — holding a high bar for service, performance, and shared accountability.

• Are deeply curious about how systems, metadata, and policy shape behavior — and love designing for integrity at scale.

• Communicate with precision and empathy — especially when priorities shift, risks emerge, or change needs a champion.

• Care about getting the details right — not for perfection’s sake, but because trust is earned in how we operationalize our values.

• Are excited to help build what next-gen procurement looks like at an AI company — not by chasing trends, but by inventing durable solutions from first principles.

Preferred Qualifications

• 7–10+ years of experience in procurement operations, program management, or business process transformation roles.

• Experience managing or governing outsourced Procurement services (e.g., BPO, shared service centers, contingent workforce providers).

• Proven ability to drive cross-functional execution across Legal, Systems, Finance, and operational teams in high-growth or high-complexity environments.

• Familiarity with procurement tec