Program Manager Lead

About the Team

OpenAI’s Marketing team helps translate complex technology, research, and product moments into work that can be understood by audiences around the world. The team brings together creative direction, design, writing, production, strategy, marketing, and regional partners to deliver campaigns, launches, films, events, brand systems, social, digital, OOH, experiential, and emerging formats across global markets.

This role sits close to creative, production, Brand Marketing, Resource Management, agencies, and cross-functional partners. It is designed for someone who can turn approved strategic direction into a clear program path and keep that path moving—from goals and operating model through creative development, production, launch readiness, and closeout.

The role will work closely with Resource Managers to anticipate resource needs, maintain accurate allocations, and identify gaps early enough to address them before they become delivery risks.

About the Role

OpenAI is seeking a Program Manager Lead to own end-to-end program execution for the Hardware team once strategy and scope are set. This role will partner closely with Brand Marketing on goals, roadmaps, operating models, and launch priorities, translating that direction into actionable plans, workstreams, ownership, cadences, resource plans, risk management, and execution.

You will provide the operating spine for complex creative programs, creating clarity across goals, roadmaps, owners, decisions, dependencies, resources, risks, and next steps. You will ensure approved initiatives have a coherent operating model, realistic resourcing, visible risks, and disciplined follow-through from kickoff through completion.

The ideal candidate combines deep program ownership with calm judgment, crisp communication, and respect for creative craft. You can turn ambiguity into practical operating plans, hold senior stakeholders accountable with tact, anticipate risks and resource conflicts, and build lightweight systems that help teams produce better work faster.

In this role, you will:

• Own end-to-end program execution for integrated Hardware marketing initiatives across campaigns, launches, brand, content, social, digital, experiential, OOH, growth, and e-commerce.

• Partner with Brand Marketing to translate approved strategy, GTM priorities, and success measures into clear program roadmaps with milestones, ownership, dependencies, and escalation paths.

• Build and maintain the program plans, workbacks, operating models, and tracking systems that give teams clear visibility into priorities, progress, resources, risks, and decisions.

• Lead the program operating rhythm across kickoffs, status updates, creative reviews, leadership forums, and follow-through, ensuring decisions are made, documented, and translated into action.

• Partner with creative and production leads to protect the creative process while keeping development, reviews, production requirements, budgets, and delivery milestones connected to the broader program plan.

• Coordinate cross-functional execution across marketing, creative, production, agencies, legal, policy, media, regional teams, and other partners, keeping dependencies, approvals, and handoffs on track.

• Partner with Creative Operations and Resource Management to forecast capacity and resource needs, maintain accurate allocation views, and address gaps before they become delivery risks.

• Anticipate and surface blockers, resource constraints, timeline pressure, budget implications, and dependency conflicts early, escalating with clear options and recommendations when needed.

• Maintain horizontal visibility across active work so teams and leadership have a clear view of program health, priorities, risks, decisions, resources, and next steps.

• Own launch readiness, ensuring critical creative, production, localization, review, and stakeholder dependencies are aligned and on track for delivery.

• Drive program closeout, capturing outcomes, open actions, learnings, and process improvements that strengthen future programs.

• Build lightweight, scalable ways of working that improve visibility, prioritization, resourcing, and delivery without adding unnecessary process.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 12+ years of experience in program management, creative operations, agency operations, marketing operations, production-adjacent program management, or integrated creative delivery.

• Have managed complex creative or marketing programs spanning campaigns, launches, content, social, digital, experiential, OOH, or brand work.

• Understand how strategic work moves from goals and planning through creative development, production, and launch—and where complex programs typically get stuck.

• Are highly organized and can turn ambiguity into a practical program roadmap without overcomplicating the process.

• Communicate clearly and diplomatically with senior creatives, marketers, producers, agencies, legal partners, regional teams, and cross-functional stakeholders.

• Are comfortable creating accountability across teams with tact, precision, and momentum.

• Have strong instincts for operating cadence, decision-making, resource planning, status reporting, action follow-through, and risk escalation.

• Can distinguish between marketing strategy, creative judgment, production craft, resource management, and program management ownership.

• Bring enough budget and resourcing fluency to understand scopes, SOWs, POs, agency fees, production dependencies, capacity constraints, staffing gaps, and delivery tradeoffs.

• Are fluent in the tools creative teams use to work, including Google Workspace, Slack, Figma, Airtable, Monday.com http://Monday.com, Asana, or similar project and resource management systems.

• Operate with strong discretion around sensitive launches, staffing, budgets, campaign strategy, partner details, and leadership priorities.

• Have genuine interest in technology, creative craft, international marketing, and the transformative potential of AI.

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.

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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.