Strategic Partner Manager

About the Team OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Creator Partnerships team supports that mission by building trusted relationships with creators, experts, and organizations to help them explore valuable uses of AI. We work across OpenAI to develop partnerships grounded in trust, usefulness, and measurable impact. Our work goes beyond individual launches and includes product education, partner feedback, and collaborative programs that create lasting value for partners and OpenAI. About the Role We are seeking a Strategic Partner Manager to build and manage trusted relationships on behalf of OpenAI. You will identify and develop strategic partnerships that help people explore meaningful uses of AI and create value for OpenAI and the partners we work with. As the relationship owner, you will guide opportunities from initial engagement through development, execution, and ongoing growth, coordinating across product, technical, marketing, and other internal teams. This is a senior individual contributor role for someone with an established network, strong strategic judgment, product curiosity, and a track record of turning relationships into successful partnerships. This role is based in Los Angeles, CA. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. Domestic and occasional international travel should be expected. In This Role, You Will - Originate, develop, and grow trusted external relationships. - Serve as the primary owner for a portfolio of strategic partners. - Understand partners’ goals, audiences, businesses, and concerns. - Identify meaningful applications of OpenAI’s products and develop partnership plans around them. - Lead opportunities from initial engagement through negotiation, execution, evaluation, and ongoing growth. - Develop clear narratives and value propositions for prospective partnerships. - Coordinate closely with teams across Product, Marketing, Communications, Global Affairs, Research, Legal, and Safety. - Represent partner perspectives and share relevant insights with internal teams. - Evaluate opportunities based on alignment, authenticity, feasibility, potential impact, and risk. - Manage multiple complex relationships and priorities while maintaining a high standard of execution. You Might Thrive in This Role If You - Have 10+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, or a related field. - Bring an established external network and a record of building trusted relationships. - Have experience originating, negotiating, and growing complex partnerships. - Can identify valuable opportunities and clearly articulate why they matter. - Quickly understand a partner’s business, audience, incentives, and concerns. - Are curious about technology and can identify relevant product applications. - Bring strong judgment around trust, rights, safety, reputation, and the sensitivities surrounding AI. - Communicate effectively with senior external partners and internal product and technical leaders. - Lead effectively across functions, including when priorities are not fully aligned. - Thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution. 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 https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf. Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. 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 employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241. OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf 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.