Business Development Lead - Cyber

About the Role We are hiring a Cyber Partnerships Lead to develop and execute OpenAI's global cybersecurity partnership strategy. This person will lead high-impact product, platform, and research partnerships across the cybersecurity ecosystem. The right person can shape where OpenAI should go deep with strategic security partners, how we enable a broader ecosystem, and how product, security, safety, policy, legal, and commercial considerations should inform a partnership. You will bring the voice of security partners into OpenAI while helping internal teams turn ambiguous opportunities into clear product, commercial, and launch decisions. You will work with leading security platforms, software supply chain companies, redteaming and AI security companies, and the teams that support OpenAI's GSI, MSSP, and channel partner motions. This is a deeply cross-functional role requiring close collaboration with Product, Engineering, GTM, Legal, Safety, and Policy teams. You’ll be responsible for: Lead full lifecycle strategic partnerships, from partner strategy and executive alignment through product scoping, commercial negotiation, launch planning, execution, and ongoing operating reviews. Work closely with Product and Engineering to translate partner needs, workflows, technical constraints, and market dynamics into product and roadmap recommendation. Partner with Security, Policy, Legal, Privacy, and Safety teams to ensure cyber partnerships are structured with the right use-case boundaries, data handling, deployment model, controls, and risk review. Coordinate with GTM, channel/revenue partnerships, GSI/MSSP enablement, and cloud service provider partnership teams to turn partnerships into customer adoption, field readiness, and measurable impact. Build senior relationships and credibility with external executives and product leaders across the cybersecurity ecosystem. Bring structure to ambiguous opportunities, clear blockers across internal and external teams, and communicate decisions crisply to senior stakeholders. We’re looking for someone with: 15+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, product partnerships, business development, or general management within the cybersecurity and technology industry. Deep understanding of the cybersecurity ecosystem, and key industry incentives and dynamics. Fluency in the compliance and regulatory environment guiding enterprise security buying behavior (e.g. SOC 2, FedRAMP, ISO 27001). Demonstrated success across the lifecycle of complex strategic partnerships that combine product integration, commercial terms, GTM execution, and long-term platform alignment. Strong technical fluency and cross-functional leadership across product, engineering, GTM, legal, policy, security, support, and operations, particularly where execution depends on influence. Clear communication, structured thinking, and comfort making prioritization calls in a fast-moving and ambiguous environment. Exceptionally high quality judgment and integrity. 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 . 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 Ope