OpenAI

Partner Director, McKinsey Alliance

OpenAI$210K — $250K *
Business Services
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years in senior leadership roles, preferably at McKinsey or a top-tier consulting/technology firm.
  • Strong combination of technology understanding and commercial leadership in business development or enterprise transformation.
  • Proven experience managing global, strategic partnerships with measurable outcomes.
  • Expert in navigating high-stakes, board-level transformation opportunities from strategy to deployment.
  • Deep familiarity with enterprise AI, data governance, and organizational change.

Responsibilities

  • Own and manage OpenAI's global relationship with McKinsey.
  • Define and oversee partnership strategy, governance, and operational execution.
  • Serve as OpenAI's senior executive liaison to McKinsey's leadership.
  • Develop a differentiated strategy combining McKinsey's expertise with OpenAI's technology offerings.
  • Facilitate the co-selling of complex enterprise AI transformation initiatives.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to influence major, strategic partnerships globally.
  • Work in an innovative environment focused on cutting-edge AI technologies.
  • Join a high-impact team with significant executive engagement.
  • Develop unique solution offerings that can scale across industries.
Full Job Description
About the Role

We are hiring a Partner Director, Global McKinsey Alliance to lead and scale OpenAI's relationship with McKinsey & Company.

This role will serve as the single accountable executive owner of the alliance globally. You will define the partnership strategy and operating model, translating executive alignment into scaled commercial and transformation outcomes across regions and industries.

You will work closely with McKinsey's global leadership, industry and functional practices, and technology organizations-including QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey-to develop differentiated enterprise AI offerings, pursue complex transformation opportunities, and help customers move from strategy to production deployment and measurable value.

The role carries responsibility for the health, performance, and long-term expansion of the partnership. Success requires senior executive presence, sound judgment, commercial discipline, technical fluency, and the ability to operate effectively across a complex, partner-led organization.
In this role, you will:
  • Own the global McKinsey relationship, including alliance strategy, pipeline growth, enterprise impact, deployment scale, and long-term expansion across priority industries.
  • Define and run the partnership's operating model across executive governance, joint planning, regional execution, opportunity management, resource allocation, and escalation.
  • Serve as OpenAI's senior executive counterpart to McKinsey's global leadership and relevant industry, functional, technology, and regional leaders.
  • Develop a differentiated alliance strategy that combines McKinsey's strategy, industry expertise, transformation capabilities, and executive relationships with OpenAI's research, models, products, and technical expertise.
  • Build a deep working relationship with QuantumBlack and other McKinsey technology and AI teams to develop repeatable solutions and move customer programs from strategy and experimentation into production.
  • Set joint priorities, establish clear ownership, resolve escalations, and coordinate execution across global and regional teams.
  • Shape and lead the co-selling of complex, CxO- and board-level enterprise AI transformation opportunities.
  • Engage directly with enterprise executives alongside McKinsey leaders to frame AI strategy, operating models, use-case portfolios, governance, adoption plans, organizational change, and value realization.
  • Identify priority industries, transformation plays, and lighthouse accounts where the partnership can create differentiated and repeatable customer value.
  • Coordinate OpenAI stakeholders across Product, Research, Sales, Solutions Architecture, Technical Success, Legal, Finance, Communications, and Operations to support strategic pursuits and deployments.
  • Establish clear rules of engagement and guardrails for intellectual property, solution quality, safety, delivery, commercial ownership, and customer accountability.
  • Build McKinsey's capability to position, design, and deliver solutions powered by OpenAI through executive alignment, technical enablement, solution patterns, readiness programs, and disciplined delivery handoffs.
  • Develop joint assets and offerings that can scale beyond individual engagements while maintaining the rigor required for highly strategic customers.
  • Allocate OpenAI resources based on strategic value, revenue potential, customer impact, repeatability, delivery readiness, and partner performance.
  • Build and lead a dedicated alliance pod over time, spanning partner management, technical leadership, enablement, and operations.
  • Establish durable reporting, metrics, and operating cadences covering pipeline, conversion, production adoption, customer outcomes, partner readiness, delivery quality, and return on OpenAI investment.
You might thrive in this role if you have:
  • Partner, Senior Partner, Managing Director, or equivalent senior leadership experience at McKinsey, another leading strategy firm, or a top-tier technology or transformation organization.
  • A strong combination of technology fluency and commercial leadership across business development, enterprise transformation, industry advisory, GTM, or strategic alliances.
  • Proven ownership of a global, multi-year strategic partnership with executive accountability and measurable commercial and customer outcomes.
  • Demonstrated success shaping and closing high-stakes, board-level transformation opportunities and moving them from strategy through production deployment.
  • Experience designing and scaling operating models between senior, partner-led organizations, including governance, incentives, account planning, staffing, delivery handoffs, and escalation.
  • Credibility with senior leaders in strategy consulting and enterprise technology, with a practical understanding of partnership economics, regional structures, and decision-making networks.
  • Strong executive presence and the judgment to make tradeoffs, resolve conflict, and maintain momentum under ambiguity and scrutiny.
  • The ability to influence Product, Research, Sales, Technical, Legal, Finance, Communications, and partner organizations without relying on direct authority.
  • Deep literacy in enterprise AI, data, cloud, security, governance, and organizational transformation, with credibility among CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and other senior executives.
  • Experience working with data science, AI engineering, or advanced analytics organizations such as QuantumBlack or comparable groups.
  • Industry expertise in at least one priority vertical, such as financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, retail and consumer, technology, industrials, or energy.
  • Experience building repeatable solutions or transformation plays from high-value strategic engagements.
  • A disciplined approach to portfolio management, including deciding when to invest, scale, redirect, or decline an opportunity.
  • Preferably, experience with private-equity value creation, portfolio transformation, capability building, or large-scale operating-model change.
What success looks like:
  • OpenAI and McKinsey have a clear alliance thesis, differentiated value proposition, executive governance model, and measurable joint plan.
  • The partnership generates qualified, strategically aligned pipeline and converts priority opportunities into production deployments with demonstrable customer value.
  • McKinsey teams can confidently identify, position, design, and support enterprise transformations powered by OpenAI.
  • The relationship with QuantumBlack and other McKinsey technology teams produces strong technical collaboration, repeatable solution patterns, and disciplined paths from prototype to production.
  • OpenAI resources are allocated transparently and concentrated on opportunities with the greatest strategic, commercial, customer, and repeatable impact.
  • Joint assets and transformation approaches move beyond bespoke engagements into reusable, industry-relevant offerings.
  • OpenAI's field understands when and how to engage McKinsey, and McKinsey teams understand OpenAI's standards, guardrails, resources, and escalation paths.
  • The alliance demonstrates sustained executive sponsorship, high-quality delivery, partner accountability, production adoption, and year-over-year growth.


About OpenAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company was founded in 2015 by a group of technology leaders, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and John Schulman. OpenAI's mission is to develop and promote friendly AI for the betterment of humanity. The company has developed a number of cutting-edge AI technologies, including GPT-3, a language processing system that can generate human-like text. OpenAI has received funding from a number of high-profile investors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Learn more about OpenAI
Size
100 employees
Industry
Founded
2015

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