Economic Development Lead

About the Team

OpenAI is building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Site Readiness & Development team owns the upstream diligence and development work required to convert powered-land opportunities into executable infrastructure options.

About the Role

The Economic Development Lead works upstream across the national pipeline, beginning engagement before a project is public and helping shape the incentive, relationship, community-benefit, and approval strategy for sites under evaluation. This role enters early during site evaluation and deal formation; once a project moves toward announcement, the dedicated Community Engagement Lead becomes the local owner while the Economic Development Lead continues to support agreement-linked commitments and incentive execution.

Key Responsibilities

• Own incentive strategy and negotiations.
• Build local and state economic-development relationships.
• Develop community-benefit commitments tied to project agreements.
• Coordinate with Site Selection, Land, Power, Legal, Finance, and Community Engagement.
• Identify political, commercial, and approval risks early.
• Transition local relationships and commitments to the assigned Community Engagement Lead as a project moves toward announcement.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in economic development, public-private partnerships, infrastructure development, government affairs, or a related field.
• Experience structuring and negotiating incentive packages for large infrastructure, energy, technology, or real estate projects.
• Strong relationships and judgment across local, state, and regional economic-development stakeholders.
• Ability to connect incentives, community benefits, legal commitments, project economics, and approval risk.
• Excellent cross-functional coordination, negotiation, and executive-communication skills.