ISV Partnerships Lead

Openai
San Francisco, CA
On-siteCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Candidates with extensive technology partnership experience and a deep understanding of AI platforms will find this senior role at OpenAI highly strategic and impactful, particularly in a fast-moving team focused on ecosystem growth.

Best fit for

  • Senior professionals with a history of leading high-impact ISV relationships and negotiating complex partnerships
    — “Proven experience leading strategic ISV relationships and negotiating complex product and commercial partnerships
  • Individuals with technical fluency and a grasp of SaaS and cloud marketplace dynamics
    — “Strong understanding of AI platforms, SaaS business models, cloud marketplaces, and enterprise go-to-market
  • Candidates who have managed large portfolios while personally driving key partnerships
    — “Demonstrated ability to manage a portfolio while personally driving the highest-impact partnerships

Things to consider

  • The role requires credibility with both partner executives and internal cross-functional teams
    — “Credibility with partner executives and with product, engineering, sales, finance, legal, and marketing teams
  • Candidates must be comfortable with ambiguity and have strong strategic judgment
    — “Strong strategic and commercial judgment, technical fluency, and comfort operating through ambiguity

How to stand out

  • Highlight your experience in structuring and negotiating multi-faceted ISV partnerships
    — “Structure and negotiate partnerships spanning product integration, model adoption, commercial terms, distribution, and joint go-to-market
  • Demonstrate your ability to influence product requirements and partner programs internally
    — “Serve as the voice of ISVs internally, shaping product requirements, developer experience, economics, and partner programs
  • Showcase your success in driving partner growth from initial launch to scaled adoption
    — “Help partners move from initial build to launch, customer adoption, expansion, and scaled consumption
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · CompanyLevel · Senior

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Building and leading ISV partnerships
  • Structuring and negotiating partnerships
  • Developing joint business plans
Typical background
PartnershipsBusiness Development

Skills & requirements

Required

Partnership StrategyComplex NegotiationsProduct IntegrationExecutive Relationships

Preferred

AI Platforms Experience

Stack & domain

PartnershipsBusiness DevelopmentPlatform EcosystemsEnterprise SoftwareAI PlatformsSaas Business ModelsCloud MarketplacesEnterprise Go-to-marketProduct IntegrationModel AdoptionCommercial TermsDistributionJoint Go-to-marketCo-buildCo-sellCo-marketMarketplace MotionsProduct RequirementsDeveloper ExperienceEconomicsPartner ProgramsStrategicCommercial JudgmentTechnical FluencyAmbiguityCommunicationExecutive PresenceCross-functional Leadership

About the role

Original posting from Openai via Ashby

About the Team

We are a small and fast-moving partnerships team that shapes and executes OpenAI’s most important collaborations. Your mission is to build and lead our business with independent software vendors, from native AI companies building in our programs to technology companies taking new products to market with OpenAI’s models and products. You will help partners build, launch, and grow differentiated products while working closely with our sales and product organizations.

About the Role

You are a senior partnerships leader with strong judgment, high ownership, and a track record of building consequential ISV relationships. You can establish durable executive partnerships, lead complex product and commercial negotiations, and move fluently from market strategy to integration, launch, adoption, and growth. You are highly commercial, technically fluent, and comfortable operating where there is no playbook.

In this role, you will:

  • Define OpenAI’s ISV partnership strategy, priorities, segmentation, and business goals.
  • Recruit and manage a portfolio of high-impact software partners across horizontal and vertical applications.
  • Structure and negotiate partnerships spanning product integration, model adoption, commercial terms, distribution, and joint go-to-market.
  • Develop joint business plans and executive governance with strategic partners.
  • Help partners move from initial build to launch, customer adoption, expansion, and scaled consumption.
  • Create repeatable co-build, co-sell, co-market, and marketplace motions.
  • Serve as the voice of ISVs internally, shaping product requirements, developer experience, economics, and partner programs.
  • Track partner pipeline, launches, adoption, consumption, customer impact, and ecosystem growth.
  • Establish the team structure and operating model needed to scale the ISV business.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

  • 12+ years of experience in technology partnerships, business development, platform ecosystems, or enterprise software.
  • Proven experience leading strategic ISV relationships and negotiating complex product and commercial partnerships.
  • Strong understanding of AI platforms, SaaS business models, cloud marketplaces, and enterprise go-to-market.
  • Demonstrated ability to manage a portfolio while personally driving the highest-impact partnerships.
  • Credibility with partner executives and with product, engineering, sales, finance, legal, and marketing teams.
  • Strong strategic and commercial judgment, technical fluency, and comfort operating through ambiguity.
  • Outstanding communication, executive presence, and cross-functional leadership in a fast-moving technology company.

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 https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

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.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf

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.

Source: Openai careers (Ashby)

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