Partnerships Operations Lead

About the team

OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI for Government helps public-sector institutions use advanced AI responsibly to improve services and advance critical missions. The Partnerships team builds the external ecosystem and internal operating mechanisms required to deliver that work at scale.

Role Summary

We are seeking a Partnerships Operations Lead to build and run the operating foundation for OpenAI for Government’s Partnerships team.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end operating cadence for partner-sourced and partner-influenced opportunities, from intake and qualification through approvals, contracting, launch, and expansion.
• Build and continuously improve operating processes, standard procedures, stage gates, decision rights, and service expectations that make partner execution faster and more predictable.
• Operationalize new and existing government partner motions—including cloud providers, resellers, and sell-through models—by translating requirements that differ from standard commercial motions into clear workflows, enablement, decision rights, and cross-functional handoffs.
• Coordinate deal execution across Account Directors, Revenue Operations, Deal Desk, Legal, Finance, Security and Compliance, Product, Technical Success, and partner teams, ensuring every action has a clear owner and timeline.
• Establish a consistent handoff from commercial teams to Technical Success by standardizing readiness criteria, account context, use cases, partner responsibilities, commitments, dependencies, and success plans.
• Unblock complex deals by surfacing issues early, driving approvals and escalations, managing exceptions, and closing gaps between functions.
• Maintain the operational source of truth for contract milestones, partner launches, handoff readiness, dependencies, and risks, with a high bar for process and data quality; coordinate with Revenue Operations to ensure partner context is reflected in pipeline and CRM data.
• Own the government-partner operating cadences for deal execution, launch tracking, and business reviews; coordinate with Revenue Operations on pipeline and forecasting inputs and turn the resulting data into concise insights and actions.
• Identify and implement workflow, tooling, and automation improvements that reduce cycle time, eliminate recurring friction, and enable the partner team to scale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in operations, Revenue Operations, Sales Operations, Deal Desk, go-to-market business operations, or complex program management.
• A track record of building operating processes and cross-functional workflows from the ground up in a fast-moving organization.
• Experience supporting the end-to-end deal lifecycle in enterprise technology, public sector, or another complex and regulated environment.
• Exceptional program-management skills, with the ability to coordinate multiple high-priority workstreams, stakeholders, decisions, and deadlines.
• Strong systems and data orientation, including experience with CRM, reporting, workflow, and collaboration tools.
• Ability to move between detailed execution and systems-level problem solving without losing speed, accuracy, or accountability.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, sound judgment, and the ability to influence cross-functional teams without relying on formal authority.

Nice to Have

• Experience operating partner, alliance, channel, or co-sell programs in enterprise technology, cloud, or AI.
• Familiarity with public-sector procurement, government contracting, and customer implementation or Technical Success handoffs.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Are a true utility player. You are comfortable moving between process design, deal problem-solving, analysis, documentation, and hands-on coordination.
• Are a builder. You see ambiguity as an invitation to create clear, durable systems that help teams operate better.
• Are deal-oriented. You understand what makes complex opportunities move, anticipate bottlenecks, and bring urgency to the critical path.
• Are a cross-functional connector. You translate clearly among commercial, operational, legal, financial, and technical stakeholders and keep teams aligned.
• Are a systems thinker. You look for root causes, remove recurring friction, and use data and automation to improve how work gets done.
• Take ownership with low ego. You are calm under pressure, highly reliable, and willing to do whatever is needed to help the team and its customers succeed.