New Geography and International Growth Lead

About the role

You will architect and own the end-to-end strategy for OpenAI's infrastructure expansion into new international geographies. This role requires you to synthesize power, policy, and operational constraints into a coherent market-entry blueprint for priority regions. You will act as the central integrator, aligning cross-functional teams around a shared vision for geographic growth. The position demands comfort with high ambiguity and the ability to translate sparse information into decisive recommendations. You will establish the foundational frameworks that determine where and how OpenAI builds critical infrastructure globally. This is an individual contributor lead role focused on strategy, execution design, and stakeholder orchestration. You will define the conditions for success and the gating risks for each potential market. Your work will directly shape the long-term operational and commercial footprint of the company.

Key facts

What you'll do

Develop comprehensive market-entry frameworks for international infrastructure, evaluating power availability, land readiness, regulatory posture, commercial structure, and execution risk across diverse geographies.

Assess priority regions and countries against OpenAI's long-term compute, energy, sustainability, policy, and operational objectives to determine strategic alignment and timing.

Coordinate cross-functional geographic diligence by engaging energy, policy, commercial, legal, finance, procurement, engineering, and site-readiness stakeholders to validate assumptions and surface constraints.

Lead early stakeholder mapping and relationship building with utilities, regulators, government entities, developers, capital partners, and other critical market participants to de-risk entry.

Translate complex regional findings into executive-ready recommendations, defining clear go / no-go decisions, gating risks, required partnerships, and sequencing options for infrastructure deployment.

Identify and document market, regulatory, land-control, permitting, community, and operating dependencies that could impact the speed, scale, cost, or strategic fit of infrastructure projects.

Partner with energy regulatory and policy teams to ensure geography strategy is consistent with OpenAI's broader external engagement, public policy positions, and infrastructure narrative.

Build repeatable playbooks, decision criteria, and tracking mechanisms to systematically evaluate, compare, and activate new geographies over time.

Synthesize ambiguous and fast-changing inputs from jurisdictional authorities and policy landscapes into coherent strategic narratives for leadership.

Own the documentation of regional constraints, opportunity windows, and dependency maps to support long-term portfolio planning and resource allocation.

Champion data-driven decision making by defining the evidence required to move from exploration to commitment in new regions.

Establish clear hypotheses for market potential and infrastructure viability, designing tests to validate key assumptions before significant capital deployment.

Coordinate timelines and dependencies across legal, finance, and operational teams to ensure alignment on milestones and risk mitigation strategies.

Serve as the primary internal thought partner for international infrastructure strategy, elevating best practices and learnings across geographies.

Requirements

Candidates must possess a minimum of 8 years of professional experience in infrastructure strategy, site selection, energy, data centers, economic development, corporate development, international expansion, or closely related fields.

You must have direct experience evaluating new markets or geographies for large-scale infrastructure, technology, energy, or real estate development projects.

A strong, demonstrated understanding of how power, land, policy, permitting, commercial structure, and operating constraints interact to shape infrastructure expansion decisions is essential.

You must have a proven ability to coordinate complex cross-functional workstreams, integrating diverse inputs and synthesizing them into clear, actionable recommendations.

Experience operating across multiple jurisdictions and navigating external stakeholders, fast-changing policy environments, and regulatory uncertainty is required.

Exceptional executive communication, analytical judgment, and rigorous documentation skills are necessary for success in this role.

You must be eligible for employment in the United States and able to perform the role under the applicable work authorization requirements.

The role requires the ability to relocate to or remain in the United States as determined by the needs of the business and internal policies.

You must be willing and able to comply with OpenAI's policies, including background checks as required by law, and to adhere to the standards outlined in our Equal Employment Opportunity policy.

Nice to have

Experience with energy infrastructure, utility interconnection processes, and large-scale development projects is strongly preferred.

Prior work in economic development, public-private partnerships, or government relations within technology or heavy-industry sectors is highly valued.

Experience with international markets, cross-cultural stakeholder management, and navigating complex regulatory frameworks in multiple countries is preferred.

Practical notes

This role requires occasional travel to priority regions for stakeholder engagement and site assessments.

Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States.

Background checks will be conducted in accordance with applicable legal requirements.