Corporate Business Development Lead

About the Role We are a small, fast-moving partnerships team that shapes and executes OpenAI’s most strategic collaborations. In this role, you will own the end-to-end hardware partnership strategy and portfolio spanning silicon, systems, and manufacturing partners that make our product roadmap real. You will build deep relationships, set and ensure we have the right joint strategy and programs in place, lead cross-functional workstreams, and iterate on complex deals to break new ground and advance OpenAI’s most ambitious hardware programs. You are a seasoned leader with deep experience in complex hardware ecosystems, comfortable operating amid ambiguity, and capable of driving alignment across executives, boards, and partners while simultaneously pushing critical programs to delivery. You have a background working closely with product and engineering leaders and expertise in strategic hardware and systems supply deals. You’re able to drive work at high velocity and can motivate external and internal partners including product, engineering, sales, finance, legal and operations. Key Responsibilities: Own strategic hardware partner relationships end-to-end. Be the primary point of contact internally and externally for OpenAI’s most important strategic hardware partners. Define and drive joint strategy and roadmap alignment. Translate product and engineering priorities into partner roadmaps, milestones, and decision points (requirements, capacity, cost targets, reliability, and timelines). Technical diligence and partner strategy. Evaluate build/buy/partner options, understand where advantages/risks sit, and provide clear recommendations grounded in technical and business analysis (silicon, connectivity, systems, device HW/SW stack, OS, etc.). Structure and negotiate complex agreements. Lead negotiations across supply, capacity reservations, pricing/TCO, NRE/JDM/JDA structures, warranties/quality terms, IP/licensing, and launch/expansion/renewal mechanics. Run operating rhythm and governance. Establish and lead QBRs, steering committees, and exec briefings. Unblock issues fast and hold both sides accountable to outcomes. Measure and communicate impact. Own the KPI framework and reporting: secured capacity, cost reduction, on-time NPI, yield/quality, reliability, supply risk, and partner satisfaction; communicate progress crisply to leadership. Build trusted, long-term relationships with partner executives; influence roadmaps, investment decisions, and capacity allocation. Qualifications: 12+ years of experience in hardware partnerships, supply chain, sourcing, or commercial leadership within semiconductors, systems, consumer electronics, cloud infrastructure, or adjacent ecosystems. Proven track record owning strategic, multi-year partner portfolios and closing first-of-kind or industry-defining agreements. Deep experience across CM / ODM / JDM models, silicon partnerships, capacity planning, cost modeling, and lifecycle execution. Demonstrated ability to operate at the executive level, influencing product and engineering strategy, investment decisions, and partner roadmaps. Exceptional cross-functional leadership across engineering, operations, finance, legal, and security in high-stakes environments. High judgment, strong negotiation instincts, and comfort making irreversible decisions with incomplete information. Thrives in fast-changing environments and brings clarity, structure, and momentum amid ambiguity. 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 emplo