Strategic Sourcing Lead, Professional Services
Remote • San Francisco • FullTime
Posted 4h ago
Remote Work Policy
Fully remote
Employment Type
FullTime
Categories
Applied AI Engineer
About the job
OpenAI is seeking a Strategic Sourcing Lead to own and execute the company's category strategy for Professional Services. This is a hands-on role for an experienced individual contributor who can set priorities, manage complex projects from start to finish, exercise sound judgment, influence senior stakeholders, and build scalable mechanisms within a rapidly growing organization. You will be responsible for managing a broad portfolio of services engagements, partnering with leaders across Finance, Accounting, Legal, People, Extended Workforce, and business teams to translate needs into clear sourcing strategies and measurable outcomes. The role requires operating independently across multiple concurrent deals, ensuring speed, value, and risk mitigation.
Responsibilities
- Own and evolve the Professional Services category strategy and execution roadmap, prioritizing based on business needs, operating goals, market insight, and risk.
- Manage multiple complex sourcing workstreams end-to-end, balancing 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 to improve value, delivery, or risk.
- Lead complex negotiations and design fit-for-purpose commercial structures, including MSAs, SOWs, milestone/outcome-based pricing, rate cards, and risk protections.
- Build and improve scalable category mechanisms like intake, tiering, preferred-partner models, playbooks, and approval pathways.
- Strengthen the supplier ecosystem through competitive sourcing, consolidation, performance governance, and value-realization plans.
- Partner with Finance and Accounting to improve spend visibility, forecasting, invoice-to-contract alignment, and commercial structures.
- Partner with Legal, People, and Extended Workforce to distinguish professional services from contingent labor and translate guidance into practical guardrails.
- Produce executive-ready reporting on pipeline health, savings, cycle time, supplier performance, risk, and business value.
- Drive reliable execution through disciplined follow-through, documentation, data hygiene, timely approvals, and process improvements.
- Utilize AI to redesign sourcing workflows for improved speed, consistency, and decision quality, while maintaining human judgment and controls.
Requirements
- 8+ years of progressive experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, or category management, with significant depth in Professional Services.
- Experience owning Professional Services category strategy and sourcing end-to-end, from intake through contracting, governance, and renewals.
- Experience leading complex, high-stakes services negotiations, balancing cost, speed, flexibility, quality, risk, and long-term partnership value.
- Understanding of the commercial and operating dynamics of consulting, advisory, managed services, and project-based work.
- Experience building or improving category operating mechanisms (e.g., intake, tiering, preferred-partner models, playbooks, reporting, supplier governance).
- Demonstrated experience using AI to redesign sourcing workflows and improve outcomes.
Benefits
- Hybrid work model (three days in office per week)
- Relocation assistance for new employees