Director of Finance, Strategic Initiatives

About the Team

OpenAI Finance is responsible for ensuring the company is set up for success in pursuit of its mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

About the Role

We're looking for a Director of Finance, Strategic Initiatives to lead and execute high-impact, cross-functional initiatives that help shape OpenAI's strategic direction and long-term growth. You are a seasoned strategic leader with deep experience in integrations, finance transformation, and complex project execution. You'll act as a force multiplier for leadership-ensuring our systems, controls, and processes scale effectively with the business.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in ambiguity, translates strategy into execution, and brings a structured, detail-oriented mindset to solving complex challenges.

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:

• Drive critical cross-functional finance initiatives aligned with the company's strategic priorities, including but not limited to: internal controls implementation, ERP upgrades, and process optimization efforts.

• Lead and manage finance-related integrations, partnering closely with Corporate Development, Strategic Finance, Tax, Legal, and Business Systems to ensure seamless transitions and strong controls.

• Translate high-level business goals into clear execution plans, timelines, and outcomes, and present recommendations to senior leadership to drive alignment and decision-making.

• Build and execute detailed project plans, including stakeholder alignment, milestone tracking, and risk mitigation.

• Partner with internal and external teams (e.g., auditors, consultants, systems integrators) to to align on priorities and ensure timely, high-quality execution of key initiatives.

• Help identify and resolve operational and control gaps as the business scales.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• 12+ years of experience in Finance, Accounting, or Corporate Development, with 5+ years focused on integrations or finance transformation.

• Strong project leadership experience driving high-stakes, cross-functional initiatives from strategy through execution.

• Experience with controls and/or ERP implementations.

• Ability to thrive in an ambiguous, fast-paced, high-growth environment with shifting priorities.

• Excellent communication skills-you're comfortable engaging executive stakeholders and aligning cross-functional teams.

• High integrity, strong ownership mindset, and a passion for building best-in-class systems and processes.

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 do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

OpenAI Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement

For US Based Candidates: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

Compensation Range: $295K