Director of Public Sector Partner Management

About the Team

OpenAI’s GTM Partnerships team builds a strategic, global partner ecosystem designed to accelerate customer success, secure AI adoption, and drive growth in support of OpenAI’s mission toward AGI. We collaborate closely across internal teams to ensure unified strategy and seamless execution.

About the Role

We’re hiring a Director of Public Sector Partnerships to lead our U.S. government partner strategy. This role is pivotal in shaping and scaling strategic alliances with services partners working across federal civilian, defense, intelligence, and state and local agencies. You’ll work closely with systems integrators, boutique AI firms, and channel partners to deliver secure, compliant, and mission-aligned AI solutions.

This position is based in the Washington, D.C. metro area, with in-office presence Monday through Wednesday and remote flexibility Thursday and Friday. Travel is expected 50% of the time, including quarterly visits to our San Francisco HQ.

In this role, you'll:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive partner strategy for the public sector, focusing on secure and compliant AI deployments.

• Establish and nurture relationships with federal systems integrators, defense contractors, and public sector agencies.

• Collaborate with partners to create joint go-to-market plans, co-marketing initiatives, and industry-specific solutions.

• Negotiate and manage partnership agreements, ensuring alignment with OpenAI's strategic objectives and compliance standards.

• Work cross-functionally with sales, marketing, product, legal, and security teams to ensure cohesive partner engagement.

• Implement performance metrics to monitor and optimize partner effectiveness.

• Stay informed on industry trends, regulatory changes, and market dynamics to maintain a competitive edge.

We're seeking someone with experience including:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, or a related field; MBA or equivalent experience preferred.

• 10+ years of experience in partner management or business development, with a focus on the public sector.

• Proven track record of building and scaling partnerships that drive revenue and market penetration.

• Strong understanding of federal procurement processes, compliance requirements, and security standards.

• Exceptional communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Why Join Us

At OpenAI, we are committed to developing AI that benefits all of humanity. This role offers the opportunity to shape the future of AI in the public sector, ensuring that our technologies are deployed safely, securely, and responsibly.

Note: This position requires U.S. citizenship due to the nature of public sector engagements.

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.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

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.