Strategic Sourcing Leader, Professional Services
San Francisco · 5+ years experience · Full-time · Hybrid · Posted Sep 29, 2026
At a glance
- Experience
- 5+ years experience
- Employment
- Full-time
- Workplace
- Hybrid
- Location
- San Francisco
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.
- To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
- We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.
About the role
- We are seeking a Strategic Sourcing Leader to lead and develop the Professional Services sourcing team and set direction across its portfolio.
- This is a people-management role with accountability for team performance, commercial quality, stakeholder experience and sustained business outcomes.
- You will translate business priorities into category strategies, achievable delivery plans and clear decision authority, while developing the judgement and independence of experienced sourcing professionals.
Responsibilities
- Lead and develop the team: set clear objectives and expectations, delegate with appropriate decision boundaries, provide regular feedback, review performance and address persistent gaps.
- Set the Professional Services portfolio strategy and roadmap, connecting business objectives, demand, spend, supplier markets and risk.
- Manage the team's pipeline and capacity across strategic negotiations, supplier governance and recurring SOWs.
- Personally lead selected critical negotiations and set standards for commercial quality across the team.
- Build proportionate intake, tiering, preferred-partner models, playbooks and review pathways with Procurement Operations, Contract Management, Enablement and control functions.
- Strengthen supplier relationships and accountability through segmentation, competition, performance reviews and improvement plans.
- Partner with Finance and Accounting on spend visibility, demand scenarios, forecasting, approval discipline and invoice-to-contract alignment.
- Partner with Legal, People and Extended Workforce to select appropriate service models and distinguish Professional Services from contingent labour or hiring needs.
- Establish a concise view of portfolio and team performance covering commercial and service outcomes, pipeline health, cycle time, risk, stakeholder experience and team capability.
- Personally use approved AI tools and lead adoption of improved sourcing workflows across the team, including supplier research, proposal analysis, negotiation preparation and reporting.
Requirements
- Have 10+ years of progressive strategic sourcing, procurement or category management experience, with substantial depth across multiple Professional Services categories and ownership from strategy through supplier performance.
- Bring 5+ years of people leadership experience, including formal responsibility for objectives, performance, development and delegation.
- Have personally led complex services negotiations and can explain the alternatives, commercial decisions and measurable outcomes, while showing how you coach others to deliver comparable quality.
- Understand consulting, advisory, managed services and project-based commercial models, including experience with large multidisciplinary firms such as the Big Four and specialist providers.
- Have turned category strategies into practical operating improvements, balancing standardization with flexibility and strategic work with recurring demand.
- Influence senior stakeholders through trust, structured thinking and concise communication.
- Bring strong financial and analytical judgement, using imperfect spend, supplier and performance data to compare options, test assumptions and verify business value beyond negotiated savings.
- Lead effectively through ambiguity, rapid change and limited structure.
- Have practical experience using AI to redesign sourcing work and helping others adopt it, with clear human review, quality checks and evidence of improvement.
- Create an inclusive team environment with clear expectations, constructive feedback and room for respectful challenge.
Workplace
- Hybrid work model of three days in the office per week
Skills
- AI Tools
- Procurement
- Strategic Sourcing
- Category Management
- Contract Management
