APAC Strategic Initiatives Lead, Global Affairs

ABOUT THE TEAM OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Achieving this goal requires deep engagement with policymakers, regulators, institutions, and communities shaping the future of AI. The Global Affairs team builds authentic, collaborative relationships with public officials and the broader AI policymaking community to ensure that external perspectives inform our work and that policy frameworks support the safe and beneficial development of AI. We work closely with research, product, policy, legal, communications, and go-to-market teams to anticipate emerging issues, shape responsible policy outcomes, and advance OpenAI’s mission around the world. ABOUT THE ROLE OpenAI is seeking a senior, highly strategic, and execution-oriented APAC Strategic Initiatives Lead to join the Global Affairs team. This is a senior individual contributor role based in Singapore, reporting to the Head of Asia-Pacific, Global Affairs. This role will help advance OpenAI’s APAC regional strategy by driving execution of priority regional initiatives, partnerships, and campaigns. You will work closely with country leads, functional partners, and company leadership to turn strategy into clear plans, coordinated execution, and measurable outcomes. The role sits at the intersection of policy, partnerships, campaigns, executive engagement, and cross-functional execution. You will bring structure to ambiguous opportunities, drive accountability across complex workstreams, and help ensure that APAC initiatives are delivered with clarity, speed, and discipline. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES - Own end-to-end execution of select APAC strategic initiatives, ensuring clear strategy, sequencing, stakeholder alignment, delivery, and measurement. - Partner with the Head of APAC Global Affairs and country leads to identify, shape, and execute priority regional initiatives across Asia Pacific. - Translate regional priorities into actionable workplans, owners, milestones, timelines, risks, and decision points. - Help design and execute APAC-wide and country-level initiatives that advance responsible AI adoption, strengthen OpenAI’s regional presence, and support priority policy outcomes. - Support flagship partnerships, convenings, executive visits, and regional moments with governments, universities, industry, NGOs, civil society, and ecosystem leaders. - Coordinate across policy, communications, legal, product, research, partnerships, go-to-market, finance, and operations teams to ensure regional initiatives are aligned and effectively executed. - Identify emerging policy, geopolitical, reputational, and commercial priorities across APAC and translate them into practical engagement plans and execution recommendations. - Prepare high-quality briefings, memos, strategic updates, and presentations for senior internal and external stakeholders. - Build lightweight systems to track priority initiatives, campaign progress, stakeholder engagement, milestones, risks, and outcomes. - Improve how APAC Global Affairs plans, executes, documents, and measures impact across regional initiatives. YOU SHOULD THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU - Are a senior operator who can move seamlessly between strategy and hands-on execution. - Have strong judgment, executive presence, and the ability to influence without formal authority. - Know how to turn broad goals into concrete initiatives, timelines, owners, and outcomes. - Bring structure, momentum, and accountability to ambiguous, fast-moving environments. - Are an exceptional writer and communicator who can produce clear, executive-ready materials. - Understand how policy, politics, reputation, partnerships, and business priorities intersect. - Operate effectively across countries, cultures, and time zones. - Have high standards, strong ownership, and a bias for action. WE’RE LOOKING FOR A BLEND OF - 10+ years of experience in strategic initiatives, partnerships, campaign execution, program management, public policy, corporate affairs, consulting, business operations, or related fields. - Significant experience supporting senior executives or regional leadership teams in high-growth, fast-moving, or complex organizations. - Proven success operating as a senior individual contributor with broad scope, executive trust, and strong ownership. - Strong experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives from strategy through execution. - Experience building and executing partnerships, campaigns, convenings, or external engagement programs involving multiple stakeholders. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing senior-level briefings, memos, and presentations. - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to synthesize multiple inputs into clear recommendations and action plans. - Experience working across APAC or in international environments. - Fluency or professional working proficiency in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean is a plus. - Familiarity with technology policy, AI, digital regulation, government affairs, public affairs, or geopolitical issues is strongly preferred. - High integrity, sound judgment, and discretion with sensitive matters. 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. 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