Head of Tax Policy and Strategic Projects

About the Team

OpenAI Finance is responsible for ensuring the organization is set up for success in pursuit of its mission.

OpenAI’s Tax and Trade team sits at the center of OpenAI’s global growth—shaping how cutting-edge AI products, partnerships, and infrastructure scale across borders while navigating complex tax, trade, and regulatory regimes. We operate as strategic operators, not just compliance experts, embedding early in product, finance, policy, and infrastructure decisions to manage risk, unlock incentives, and enable OpenAI to grow responsibly and competitively worldwide.

About the Role

As the Head of Tax Policy and Strategic Projects, you will act as a policy leader to guide our company’s global tax strategy and shape the future of taxation for AI and digital innovation. You will be directly involved in high-impact projects including deals, tax planning, controversy, and other strategic or operational initiatives, ensuring that tax policy is informed by and embedded in real-world business decisions.

You’re someone who can combine external policy leadership with deep internal collaboration and work closely with Finance, Legal, Product, and Policy teams to ensure that our global tax posture supports innovation, growth, and competitiveness. You will also bring strong global technical tax expertise, strategic business instincts, and the ability to communicate complex issues clearly to policymakers and senior executives alike.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, but we are also open to Washington DC area-based candidates. 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:

• Define and implement the company’s tax policy strategy to align with global business objectives and regulatory developments.

• Translate emerging policy developments in the form of Regulations and Written Guidance (Rev. Procs. Rev. Rul. etc) into practical guidance and help shape the company's long-term tax strategy by connecting technical rules with real-world implementation.

• Represent the company in discussions with policymakers (Congress, the Treasury Department), regulators, and multilateral institutions (e.g., OECD, G20, IMF) to help shape frameworks for the digital and AI economy, including Pillar 1, Pillar 2, and digital services taxes.

• Partner with the Global Affairs and Legal groups as a technical tax resource.

• Play an active role in cross-border tax planning and controversy matters, including support for licensing structures, operational expansions, and internal reorganizations.

• Apply advanced technical expertise in areas such as FDDEI, NCTI, foreign tax credits, income characterization and sourcing, and the application of CAMT, BEAT, and NOL limitations. Advise on complex transactions and intercompany arrangements to ensure tax outcomes are sustainable, audit-ready, and aligned with commercial and policy objectives

• Partner with Finance, Legal, Product, and Policy teams to integrate tax considerations into strategic initiatives such as new market entry, M&A, and global structuring.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• A J.D. and 15+ years of experience in global tax policy, planning, or strategy, with leadership experience in multinational corporations, government, or multilateral institutions.

• Demonstrated experience in tax planning, transactional, or M&A tax matters, with the ability to connect business activity to long-term tax policy and strategy.

• A deep understanding of OECD/G20 frameworks (Pillar 1 and Pillar 2), digital services taxation, tax regulatory review process and analysis of these regulations, U.S. global tax policy.

• Prior experience working in a government tax policy or regulatory environment (e.g., U.S. Department of the Treasury, IRS, legislative tax policy roles) or in roles interfacing with government tax authorities preferred.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-pur