Private Equity Lead

About the role

This is a senior commercial leadership role focused on expanding OpenAI’s private equity business. The position is centered on building the segment, setting the go-to-market approach, and driving durable revenue through disciplined origination, account growth, and execution.

You will act as a high-level external relationship owner for private equity sponsors, operating partners, and portfolio company leaders, while also working across internal teams to unblock opportunities and scale commercial outcomes.

Core responsibilities

• Define and run the go-to-market strategy for private equity, including sponsor prioritization, account selection, coverage planning, and investment allocation.
• Act as the primary senior relationship contact for PE firms, operating partners, deal teams, and important portfolio executives, earning trust at executive level.
• Generate pipeline, build origination channels, and grow revenue through both sponsor-level relationships and portfolio company opportunities.
• Develop a model for winning, expanding, and retaining business in sponsor-backed accounts, balancing immediate sales with long-term platform adoption.
• Create a disciplined operating cadence with strong forecasting, inspection routines, and performance expectations.
• Convert sponsor objectives and portfolio value-creation goals into practical commercial opportunities and scalable AI solutions.
• Lead complex deals involving senior business stakeholders, technical teams, procurement, legal, security, and operating partners.
• Position OpenAI as a trusted strategic partner to private equity firms by understanding both investment goals and operating realities across portfolio companies.
• Build account plans and expansion strategies that turn sponsor relationships into repeatable growth across portfolios.
• Work closely with industry, product, solutions, legal, policy, security, and finance teams to remove barriers and accelerate priority opportunities.
• Bring the voice of private equity customers into the company and help shape product direction, messaging, packaging, and commercial strategy.
• Partner with marketing and field teams to refine the private equity story and build repeatable demand generation and expansion motions.
• Help design commercial frameworks, approval processes, and resource allocation decisions aligned with customer needs and growth goals.
• Coordinate pre-sales and post-sales teams so customers move smoothly from evaluation to production with clear ownership and long-term success planning.

What we’re looking for

• 15–20 years of experience leading enterprise sales or go-to-market organizations, with substantial time in senior front-line leadership roles.
• Proven success running large, complex strategic account or segment businesses with clear responsibility for revenue.
• Strong executive presence and the ability to build durable relationships with sponsors and portfolio leaders.
• Deep experience in private equity or a similar relationship-driven enterprise environment, with an understanding of how to create leverage across firms and portfolio companies.
• Excellent operational discipline across business planning, forecasting, performance management, and data-driven decisions.
• A low-ego, high-standards leadership style that builds trust and influences across functions.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and change while creating structure and consistent execution in a fast-moving setting.
• Prior experience launching new motions, segments, or strategic-account businesses is strongly preferred.

Skills and experience

• Deep background in complex enterprise or strategic commercial motions with direct revenue ownership.
• Strong credibility in private equity, financial sponsors, or adjacent relationship-led ecosystems.
• 15–20 years in enterprise sales or GTM leadership, including meaningful front-line leadership experience.
• Ability to build strategy and operating rhythm for consultative, multi-stakeholder, high-value sales motions.
• Strong people leadership, including hiring, coaching, and developing senior commercial talent.
• Experience with AI, cloud, platform, or other technically sophisticated product environments is preferred.
• Ability to navigate both sponsor-level and portfolio-company-level relationships.
• Experience influencing product, legal, or commercial decisions based on customer feedback and market insight.
• Exposure to consumption-based and platform sales models is preferred.
• Ability to learn AI platforms quickly and communicate business value credibly.
• Experience across both high-growth and large-scale enterprise environments is a plus.
• Experience building a segment from early structure to repeatable scale is a plus.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company focused on ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits everyone. The organization develops advanced AI systems and works to deploy them safely through its products. It emphasizes that AI should be built with safety and human needs at the center, while reflecting a broad range of perspectives and experiences.

Equal opportunity and compliance

OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Background checks may be conducted in line with applicable law. Candidates with arrest or conviction records will be considered where permitted, including under relevant fair chance laws in the US. For certain Los Angeles County workers, the role is considered to involve access to protected systems and information, and specific job duties may include safeguarding computer hardware, returning company equipment and data at the end of employment or assignment, and maintaining confidentiality of proprietary and non-public information.

Reasonable accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities.

Compensation

The stated compensation range for this role is $335K to $350K.