Federal Account Director, Intelligence Community

About the Team

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings the world’s best scientists, engineers, and business professionals into one lab together to accomplish this.

In pursuit of this mission, our Go To Market (GTM) team is responsible for helping customers learn how to leverage and deploy our highly capable AI products across their organization. The team comprises Sales, Solutions, Support, Marketing, and Partnership professionals who collaborate to create valuable solutions that will help bring AI to as many users as possible.

About the Role

Our Government Sales team has a unique mission to help the U.S. Intelligence Community understand the transformative impact that highly capable AI models can bring to its most critical missions. This role combines technical understanding, strategic vision, relationship management, and value-driven sales strategy tailored specifically to Intelligence Community customers.

You’ll drive key opportunities throughout the full sales cycle, from pipeline generation through deployment and expansion. You’ll collaborate closely with researchers, engineers, solution strategists, and cross-functional partners to help Intelligence Community customers advance their missions through AI.

This role is based in Washington, D.C. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In addition, this role requires frequent on-site engagement at customer and partner facilities across the Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia corridor, including classified environments.

In this role, you will:

- Manage a focused set of key U.S. Intelligence Community accounts, developing and executing comprehensive account strategies.

- Lead Intelligence Community customers through their AI adoption journey, from initial consideration through successful deployment and expansion.

- Build trusted relationships with senior leaders, mission owners, technical stakeholders, acquisition professionals, and other decision-makers across the Intelligence Community.

- Partner with Solutions and Research Engineering teams to design and execute complex customer programs and deployments.

- Develop and execute capture and co-sell strategies with federal systems integrators and specialized mission partners to position OpenAI in multi-year programs of record.

- Align opportunity planning and deal strategy to MIP and NIP funding cycles, classified contract vehicles, appropriations timing, and extended approval chains.

- Work with cleared technical teams to demonstrate value across cloud, hybrid, on-premises, and air-gapped environments and translate technical fit into mission outcomes.

- Own and manage an Intelligence Community consumption revenue target.

- Develop pipeline, lead complex deal strategies, and drive opportunities through the full sales cycle.

- Oversee revenue forecasting, pipeline management, and account reporting.

- Analyze account performance and provide actionable insights to internal and external stakeholders.

- Closely monitor Intelligence Community priorities, policies, acquisition trends, competitors, and partners to inform product roadmaps and company strategy.

- Navigate complex security, compliance, procurement, and contracting requirements associated with Intelligence Community customers.

- Collaborate cross-functionally with Solutions, Product, Engineering, Government Affairs, Marketing, Communications, Business Operations, People Operations, Finance, and Legal.

- Support the recruitment and onboarding of team members focused on the Intelligence Community.

- Help build and strengthen OpenAI’s culture and operating model within the Intelligence Community practice.

We're seeking someone with experience including:

- 10+ years selling commercial technology, including platform-as-a-service, software-as-a-service, cloud, data, cybersecurity, or other enterprise technology, to the U.S. Intelligence Community.

- A documented track record of closing high-value, multi-stakeholder enterprise technology deals across major Intelligence Community organizations and their supporting ecosystems.

- An active Top Secret clearance with Full Scope Polygraph.

- Developing and executing complex account and deal strategies within the Intelligence Community.

- Navigating Intelligence Community procurement, acquisition, contracting, security, and deployment processes.

- Deep familiarity with MIP and NIP funding cycles, classified contract vehicles, multi-year programs of record, and extended acquisition timelines.

- An established senior-level network of GS-15/SES/SIS and C-suite relationships across major Intelligence Community organizations and their supporting ecosystems.

- Experience partnering with federal systems integrators and specialized mission partners on capture strategies, co-selling, and program expansion.

- Proven experience selling cloud, cybersecurity, hybrid-cloud, or AI infrastructure into sensitive or classified environments, including on-premises and air-gapped deployment patterns.

- Consistently delivering growth in fast-paced, high-performance environments.

- Working directly with senior Intelligence Community executives, mission leaders, technical stakeholders, and decision-makers.

- Deep relationships and native familiarity with Intelligence Community missions, organizational structures, workflows, and buying processes.

- Translating technical capabilities into clear mission outcomes and strategic value.

- Communicating technical and strategic concepts clearly to both Intelligence Community customers and internal stakeholders.

- Leading high-visibility customer briefings, executive engagements, demonstrations, and industry events.

- Gathering, distilling, and applying detailed market intelligence, including agency priorities, policy developments, budget trends, acquisition strategies, and competitor activity.

You might thrive in this role if you:

- Are customer-centric. You are motivated to deeply understand defense customers’ priorities and help them achieve their mission-critical objectives using AI. You build trusted relationships with senior executives and stakeholders across defense and national security agencies.

- Have a passion or deep curiosity about artificial intelligence. You embrace the opportunity to help deploy OpenAI’s technology in ways that advance national security missions and benefit humanity. You’re enthusiastic about educating defense customers on AI capabilities and strategic implications.

- Are a builder. You enjoy impacting how our company grows its defense and intelligence business. You excel in establishing robust systems and processes tailored to defense customer requirements, executing them with precision and agility.

- Are excited by new challenges. You thrive when solving complex, mission-critical defense and national security problems. Bespoke challenges requiring multidimensional knowledge excite you, and you’re eager to experiment with innovative solutions within national security environments.

- Are a strategist. You deeply understand defense go-to-market best practices and proactively contribute to strategic initiatives. You plan years ahead, effectively aligning internal and external defense and intelligence stakeholders to achieve long-term objectives.

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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