Operations & Compliance Audit Leader

About the Team

The OpenAI Audit Team is on a mission to build the future of internal audit from the ground up. Our ambition will be powered by a high-energy, technically exceptional team with the judgment, intellectual curiosity, and creativity to harness the latest advances in AI and design a truly next-generation audit function.

As AI reshapes how work is performed across the enterprise, Internal Audit will use AI, automation, and data analytics to identify and assess the most significant and emerging risks across the business, including technology, cybersecurity, finance, compliance, operations, and data.

We will build trusted partnerships at every level—from the Board of Directors and senior leadership to the teams delivering on OpenAI’s mission every day. We will operate as both an independent assurance provider and a trusted advisor, bringing an objective and pragmatic perspective to critical decisions. By engaging closely with management while preserving our independence, we will help the business innovate responsibly, move with confidence, and manage risk without creating unnecessary barriers.

About the Role

As the Operations & Compliance Audit Leader, you will help shape the strategy, methodology, technology, and culture of a new audit function. You will lead complex audits and advisory reviews across financial, operational, and compliance risks while advising leaders on practical ways to strengthen governance, execution, accountability, and risk management.

You are an experienced, hands-on professional who combines strong audit and risk expertise with the business judgment needed to navigate a complex, rapidly evolving organization. You can quickly move between executive-level governance questions and detailed process and data analysis, understand how risks intersect across functions, and form clear, well-supported conclusions in fast-moving or ambiguous situations.

You will have meaningful influence over how the function develops, including how we apply AI, automation, and analytics to audit planning, testing, monitoring, and reporting. This is an opportunity to help build a state-of-the-art capability rather than inherit a traditional audit model.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Lead risk-based audits and advisory reviews across finance, operations, compliance, and other significant enterprise risks.

• Drive governance and oversight of critical business programs, including financial management, regulatory compliance, third-party risk, operational resilience, and enterprise-wide initiatives.

• Evaluate financial and operational processes and controls across areas—such as financial reporting, accounting, treasury, tax, revenue, procurement, payroll, expense management, and financial planning—with a focus on material risks affecting execution, scalability, efficiency, and resilience.

• Assess compliance programs and emerging business risks, including those arising from new products, markets, partnerships, organizational changes, and the use of AI in financial, operational, and compliance processes.

• Translate complex technical findings into clear business implications and practical recommendations that enable innovation while supporting effective risk management.

• Build advanced audit capabilities using data analytics, automation, and AI to improve risk assessment, audit scoping, testing, continuous monitoring, and reporting, including identifying anomalies, control weaknesses, and emerging risks.

• Build trusted relationships across the organization and support clear, effective reporting to executive management, regulators, and the Board.

• Monitor developments in regulation, enforcement activity, business practices, and industry risk to keep the audit approach current and forward-looking.

• Coach colleagues, share technical expertise, and contribute to a culture of high standards, sound judgment, curiosity, ownership, and continuous learning.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• 10–12+ years of relevant experience in internal audit, finance, accounting, compliance, operational risk, enterprise risk, or a related field.

• Strong expertise across multiple areas, such as financial reporting, accounting, treasury, revenue, procurement, regulatory compliance, third-party risk, operational resilience, or enterprise governance, including experience leading complex audits from risk assessment through reporting and issue validation.

• A strong understanding of data and AI risks—including data quality, lineage, governance, access, and analytics—along with experience using automation or AI-assisted techniques in audit, finance, compliance, risk management, or control testing.

• The ability to understand end-to-end business processes, ask incisive questions, evaluate incomplete information, and reach well-supported conclusions with sound judgment.

• The confidence to challenge constructively and a business-enabling mindset that balances innovation, speed, operational impact, compliance obligations, and risk.

• Strong communication and relationship-building skills, including the ability to explain complex issues clearly to executives and collaborate effectively across finance, legal, compliance, operations, product, and senior management.

• The initiative, curiosity, and adaptability to help build a new capability in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

• A relevant bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

• Certifications such as CPA, CIA, CISA, CFE, CAMS, or CRMA are valued but not required.

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.

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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