External Affairs Manager - Global Affairs

About the Team

OpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The U.S. Policy and Partnerships team sits within Global Affairs and helps translate that mission into trusted, practical engagement with civil society, community leaders, researchers, and other external stakeholders across the United States.

Our current operating model is built around disciplined, cross-functional campaigns: moving from abstract persuasion to local proof, pairing policy expertise with real-world use cases, and working with trusted validators who can help communities understand, shape, and benefit from AI. The team works closely with colleagues across Global Affairs, Legal, Safety, Communications, Product, Research, and other functions to build relationships that are substantive, durable, and grounded in two-way learning.

About the Role

As the U.S. External Affairs Manager, you will lead a portfolio spanning civil rights partnerships and federal AI policy, working with team leads to shape and advance OpenAI's engagement with civil rights organizations, civil society groups, researchers, and community-based organizations. This role combines independent strategic ownership, policy judgment, and external representation to help shape the AI policy debate in the United States.

This role is central to the team's partnership and outreach operating model. You will help identify priority stakeholders, design engagement strategies, and build the external relationships and feedback loops. The work is not about one-way education; it is about co-design, listening, product and policy learning, and creating concrete proof points that can strengthen public trust.

Reporting to the External Affairs Lead, you will work across the U.S. Policy and Partnerships team and in close coordination with State and Local Policy, Federal Affairs, Communications, Safety, Legal, Product, and Research. OpenAI is evolving quickly as we release new research, products, and tools. Day-to-day work may include representing OpenAI at convenings, designing a stakeholder strategy around a fast-moving policy issue, organizing partner briefings, preparing product and policy explainers, supporting local proof-point campaigns, coordinating quarterly partner reviews, or translating feedback from civil society into actionable insights for internal teams.

This role is based in Washington, DC and may require frequent travel to meet with key stakeholders. We offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In This Role, You Will

• Develop and lead federal AI policy initiatives within your portfolio in partnership with Federal Affairs, connecting civil society priorities, community feedback, and practical use cases to OpenAI's policy positions and advocacy.

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with civil rights, civil society, research, community, education, accessibility and other stakeholder organizations relevant to OpenAI's U.S. policy priorities.

• Help execute a repeatable engagement operating model grounded in co-design, localized benefits, trusted validators, cross-functional planning, and regular partner reviews.

• Develop stakeholder maps, engagement plans, briefing materials, and follow-up systems for priority policy campaigns and rapid-response moments.

• Support federal and state engagement strategies by identifying credible third-party voices, local proof points, and community feedback that can inform policy positions and advocacy.

• Represent OpenAI in senior-level policy discussions and external convenings, and prepare executives and subject-matter experts for meetings, roundtables, and public events, in coordination with Federal Affairs and relevant internal leads.

• Translate complex AI product, safety, and policy topics into clear materials for external audiences, including standing content packs and deeper product briefings for technology policy stakeholders.

• Surface external concerns and opportunities related to data and trust, deepfakes, child safety, job displacement, energy costs, copyright, civil and human rights, mental health, and other areas of public concern.

• Coordinate closely with Global Affairs, Communications, Legal, Safety, Product, Research, and other internal teams to ensure stakeholder engagement is accurate, thoughtful, and useful to the business.

• Track relationship health, engagement outcomes, commitments, risks, and follow-ups so the team can operate with accountability and continuity.

You Might Thrive In This Role If You

• Are deeply familiar with the civil society, civil rights, and technology policy landscape in the United States.

• Are an effective coalition builder who can earn trust with a wide range of stakeholders, including groups that may be skeptical of OpenAI or AI more broadly.

• Enjoy working in fast-moving, ambiguous environments where strategy, execution, and judgment all matter.

• Can move easily between external relationship-building and internal cross-functional coordination.

• Are comfortable translating technical and policy complexity into clear, useful materials for non-technical audiences.

• Have strong instincts for where public trust, policy risk, and product reality intersect.

• Are energized by the promise of AI while taking seriously its potential harms and uneven impacts.

We’re looking for someone with:

• Established network and credibility with civil society, civil rights, research, community, and other stakeholder organizations, including groups representing underrepresented communities.

• Deep experience in technology policy, public policy, public affairs, civil society engagement, advocacy, campaigns, or a related field.

• Strong understanding of the federal, state, and local policy institutions, processes, and debates shaping AI governance in the United States.

• Demonstrated ability to design and execute stakeholder engagement strategies tied to concrete policy, partnership, or public trust objectives.

• Excellent communication, presentation, briefing, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to convey complex technical and policy concepts to diverse audiences.

• Strong project management skills, including the ability to manage shared resources, timelines, follow-ups, and cross-functional workstreams.

• Sound judgment, high integrity, and the ability to operate thoughtfully on sensitive or high-salience issues.

• Proven ability to work with cross-functional teams, especially policy, communications, legal, safety, product, research, and technical teams.

• Genuine care for the impact of technology on society and a demonstrated ability to listen carefully to external concerns.

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.

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