Procurement Operations Leader

About the Team

The Procurement Operations team runs the engine that turns intent into spend at OpenAI.

We sit between the people who need things (research, product, engineering, operations) and the systems that record, pay for, and report on them. Our job is to make it easy for teams to buy what they need while ensuring every dollar lands in the right place — on the right supplier, on the right PO, with the right data — so Finance, Legal, and Security can trust the outcome.

As OpenAI scales, this team is also where AI, automation, and self-service come to life. We design workflows that let more volume move touchlessly, while embedding controls and audit trails directly into the systems — so speed and rigor grow together. This team works side-by-side with Accounts Payable, Strategic Sourcing, Legal, Security, and Finance Systems to ensure the company can move fast without losing financial integrity or control.

About the Role

The Procurement Operations Leader owns the operational backbone of how OpenAI turns requests into committed, controlled, and payable spend. This role sits at the center of our purchasing lifecycle — ensuring that every request, PO, and supplier record is complete, policy-aligned, and ready to scale through automation, BPO support, and AI-assisted workflows already in production.

You’ll be responsible for the health of the intake-to-PO engine: how work enters the system, how it gets validated, how it routes, and how it lands in our financial systems. That includes strengthening the controls that keep us safe, the data that makes us fast, and the workflows that allow AI and self-service to do more of the work.

This is a player-coach role. You’ll design the systems and guardrails that enable scale, and you’ll also step into the queue when something breaks, when volume spikes, or when a complex case needs hands-on leadership.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Own the intake-to-PO operating model, including request validation, routing, PO creation, change management, and supplier master data.

• Ensure every request and PO is complete, policy-aligned, and audit-ready, with clean metadata that supports invoice matching and reporting.

• Increase first-pass invoice match rates by improving upstream data quality and exception logic.

• Reduce P2P cycle time through automation, self-service, and disciplined queue management.

• Codify approval rules, exception handling, and segregation of duties directly into Zip, Oracle, and connected systems.

• Expand and refine AI-assisted triage, validation, and routing so more volume moves through the system with less manual touchpoints.

• Build and maintain dashboards and operational metrics to track intake health, cycle time, exception rates, and control performance.

• Partner with Legal, Security, TPRM, and Finance Systems to ensure controls and policies are reflected in how work actually flows.

• Serve as the escalation point when operational breakdowns occur — and lead the resolution through to a clean outcome.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• 10+ years of experience running procurement, P2P, or intake-driven operations in fast-scaling environments.

• A strong understanding of how upstream intake and metadata quality drive downstream invoice accuracy, audit readiness, and financial clarity.

• A passion for transforming messy, manual processes into structured, scalable, automated systems.

• Leveraged AI/automation to improve quality, speed, and scale.

• Used data and metrics to spot risk, bottlenecks, and opportunities to simplify.

• A strong grasp of controls, segregation of duties, and compliance requirements across Procurement, Legal, and Finance.

• Comfort being a true player-coach — designing the operating model while also stepping into the queue to unblock a PO, fix a supplier record, or resolve a high-impact exception when needed.

• Strong communication skills and the ability to partner cross-functionally to design workflows that enable speed while protecting the business.

• Experience with tools such as Zip, Oracle, Jira, Navan, or similar platforms.