Partnerships & External Affairs Associate, Global Affairs

About the Team

OpenAI's Global Affairs team builds relationships with communities to help ensure that artificial intelligence benefits people broadly. The partnership team works with organizations and leaders across education, workforce development, labor, faith, civil rights, and other communities. We build partnerships that help people use AI in ways that matter to their lives, strengthen the organizations serving their communities, and ensure their experiences and concerns help shape OpenAI's work.

About the Role

We're looking for a resourceful partnerships professional who combines strong external relationship skills with the judgment and organizational ability to move complex initiatives forward. You will manage designated external relationships and lead the day-to-day delivery of partnerships across the team's portfolios. Working with portfolio leads, you will translate agreed objectives into practical programs, represent OpenAI in partner conversations, coordinate internal contributions, and carry commitments through delivery. You will also step into emerging priorities: helping launch a new collaboration, advancing an existing partnership, preparing a senior leader for an external engagement, or coordinating a project involving several teams. Your portfolio will evolve with team priorities, with clear ownership and agreed outcomes for each assignment. This role requires someone who enjoys building relationships and doing the detailed work that makes those relationships productive. You should be comfortable working independently, learning unfamiliar issues quickly, and knowing when to seek expertise or escalate a decision.

In this role, you will:

• Own external relationships. Build and manage trusted relationships with nonprofit organizations, civic leaders, community institutions, and other partners across a range of diverse perspectives and communities.
• Develop and deliver partnerships. Translate shared interests into practical collaborations with clear objectives, scope, responsibilities, timelines, and measures of success.
• Represent OpenAI externally. Lead partner meetings and briefings, participate in convenings, and communicate clearly about AI's opportunities and safe and responsible use.
• Contribute across the team's priorities. Take ownership of defined projects across different portfolios, support colleagues during major initiatives, and help establish new areas of engagement.
• Connect partners with internal expertise. Work with policy, product, safety, legal, communications, and education colleagues to develop substantive engagements and secure the contributions needed for delivery.
• Turn stakeholder insight into action. Identify concerns and opportunities, synthesize what we hear, bring relevant feedback to internal owners, and close the loop with partners.
• Deliver funded partnership programs. Translate agreed commitments into feasible workplans with clear owners, milestones, and outcomes. Work directly with partners and portfolio leads to resolve program questions, coordinate implementation, and assess results, including recommendations for improvement or renewal.
• Coordinate partnership implementation across teams. Bring together relationship owners and colleagues in policy, legal, finance, procurement, product, and communications to move agreements, funding processes, and program launches forward; track dependencies, resolve or escalate blockers, and keep partners and internal teams informed of progress.
• Maintain reliable follow-through. Manage workplans, partner commitments, budgets, and approval processes for your projects; surface dependencies and risks early and recommend solutions.
• Exercise sound prioritization. Assess incoming opportunities against team goals, recommend where to invest time and resources, and adjust plans as circumstances change.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Bring 6+ years of relevant experience in partnerships, external affairs, public policy, campaigns, government, nonprofits, or community engagement, or equivalent experience demonstrating these capabilities.
• Have independently managed external relationships and delivered complex partnership programs, including scoping commitments, coordinating multiple teams, managing budgets, and evaluating outcomes.
• Combine political and stakeholder judgment with strong execution skills, including navigating disagreement and sensitive issues.
• Can build credibility with people whose experiences and views differ from your own.
• Write clearly, communicate confidently, and translate complex topics for nontechnical audiences.
• Are organized and responsive, can manage several projects at once, and take responsibility for completing commitments.
• Work effectively across teams without formal authority and make thoughtful decisions about when to act independently and when to seek alignment.
• Enjoy a varied portfolio and can move between relationship development, strategic thinking, and hands-on delivery.
• Are curious about AI and its implications for communities, public institutions, and economic opportunity.