Strategic Sourcing Lead, Professional Services at OpenAI · LumiJobs

Responsibilities

We are seeking a Strategic Sourcing Lead to own and execute OpenAI’s category strategy for Professional Services. This is an experienced individual-contributor role for a high-velocity, hands-on sourcing operator who can set category priorities, own complex work end to end, exercise sound judgment, influence senior stakeholders, and build scalable category mechanisms in a rapidly growing organization. You will turn incomplete information, shifting priorities, and unclear decision paths into practical next steps and disciplined execution.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
Own and continuously evolve the Professional Services category strategy and execution roadmap, setting priorities based on business needs, operating goals, market insight, and risk considerations.
Own multiple complex sourcing workstreams end to end, balancing high-value strategic negotiations with a high-throughput portfolio of services engagements.
Build trusted partnerships with senior stakeholders, clarify tradeoffs, and challenge or redirect proposed services models when a different approach will improve value, delivery, or risk.
Lead complex negotiations and design fit-for-purpose commercial structures, including master services agreements, statements of work, milestone- and outcome-based pricing, rate cards, acceptance criteria, change controls, audit rights, and termination protections.
Build and improve scalable category mechanisms, including intake and tiering, category plans, preferred-partner models, supplier segmentation, negotiation playbooks, approval pathways, and clear escalation mechanisms—creating enough structure to enable speed without over-engineering.
Strengthen the supplier ecosystem through competitive sourcing, consolidation where appropriate, performance governance, business reviews, and active value-realization plans.
Partner with Finance and Accounting to improve spend visibility, forecasting, approval discipline, invoice-to-contract alignment, and commercial structures that support appropriate accounting treatment and auditability.
Partner with Legal, People, and Extended Workforce to distinguish professional services from contingent labor, translate guidance into practical guardrails, and reduce co-employment, scope, intellectual-property, and delivery risk without slowing the business.
Produce clear, executive-ready reporting across pipeline health, savings and cost avoidance, cycle time, supplier performance, renewal exposure, risk, forecast accuracy, and realized business value.
Drive reliable execution through disciplined follow-through, clear documentation, clean data, timely approvals, and practical process improvements—creating lightweight structure where gaps exist and adapting quickly as priorities change.

Strategic Sourcing Lead, Professional Services

Responsibilities

Benefits

Company

OpenAI

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