Strategic Partnerships Lead, Education

About the role

OpenAI is seeking a Strategic Partnerships Lead to help Education GTM open new markets, originate and advance flagship partnerships, and develop research-backed programs that demonstrate the impact of AI in education.

This is primarily a strategic partnerships and business development role, with research partnership development as a core part of the mandate. You will work across K-12 and higher education to build partnerships with countries, universities, research organizations, and ecosystem partners. These partnerships should drive AI enablement, generate credible insights and evidence, strengthen institutional trust, and inform OpenAI’s broader education, product, policy, and go-to-market strategy.

This is an individual contributor role that requires leading through influence across internal and external stakeholders. The role will require approximately 35% travel.

You do not need to be an academic researcher, but you should be highly fluent in research design, evidence generation, evaluation partnerships, measurement, and impact validation. You should be able to help shape the right research questions, identify credible partners, structure pilots and evaluations, and translate findings into practical GTM, product, and policy insights.

In this role, you will

• Originate, qualify, and advance complex strategic partnerships across K-12 and higher education, including school systems, universities, research organizations, ecosystem partners, and policymakers.
• Build and manage a research partnership pipeline that helps OpenAI generate credible evidence around AI’s impact on learning, teaching, adoption, engagement, and capability-building.
• Partner with internal research, product, policy, legal, privacy, communications, sales, solutions, and customer-facing teams to shape research-backed education programs from concept through execution.
• Help define priority learning questions, research partner criteria, pilot structures, evaluation models, and evidence-building opportunities that can inform Education GTM and product strategy.
• Structure strategic partnership, research, data, pilot, evaluation, and program agreements that balance adoption, evidence generation, responsible deployment, and institutional trust.
• Identify opportunities that create high impact across commercial growth, education outcomes, thought leadership, institutional credibility, and OpenAI’s mission.
• Translate approved research findings, pilot outcomes, and partnership learnings into high-leverage GTM assets, including case studies, deployment narratives, executive updates, sales proof points, strategic partner stories, and field-ready resources.
• Build repeatable partnership models, operating mechanisms, account expansion strategies, and playbooks that can scale across K-12 systems, higher education institutions, and priority markets.
• Help shape the external narrative around responsible, effective, and evidence-backed AI adoption in education.
• Lead through influence across internal and external stakeholders to move ambiguous, high-priority opportunities toward concrete commitments and measurable outcomes

You might thrive in this role if you

• Have demonstrated success originating, structuring, and advancing complex strategic partnerships in ambiguous or emerging markets.
• Have deep experience across K-12 and/or higher education, with exposure to school systems, universities, research organizations, policymakers, education technology companies, foundations, or ecosystem partners.
• Bring strong strategic business development judgment, including the ability to map stakeholders, identify executive sponsors, qualify real opportunities, and move ambiguous interest toward commitment.
• Are highly fluent in research partnerships, evidence generation, evaluation design, impact measurement, and research-backed program development.
• Can work with researchers and cross-functional teams to shape practical research questions, structure credible pilots, and identify what evidence is needed to support responsible adoption.
• Can translate research findings, pilot results, and flagship partnerships into reusable playbooks, proof points, and field-ready assets without overstating claims.
• Can create sharp briefings for senior education, government, system, and institutional leaders that connect AI in education to concrete priorities, implementation paths, and next steps.
• Have strong commercial instincts paired with a deep interest in learning, evidence generation, education outcomes, and the societal implications of AI.
• Move fluidly between executive engagement, strategic thinking, research partnership design, negotiation, program execution, and GTM translation.
• Have a track record of creating new partnership models, programs, or strategic initiatives in areas without established playbooks.
• Are comfortable operating as an individual contributor in a highly cross-functional environment, influencing through credibility, trust, judgment, and ownership rather than formal authority.
• Are willing and able to travel approximately 35% of the time to support partner development, executive engagement, research programs, and market-building efforts.