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OpenAI is seeking an Account Director for Higher Education to own strategic relationships with colleges, universities, and higher education systems across AMER as they transition from AI experimentation to institution-wide transformation. This is a deeply technical, consultative sales role requiring end-to-end ownership of the commercial and customer journey—from territory strategy and pipeline creation through evaluation, procurement, deployment, adoption, and expansion.
You will engage credibly with presidents, provosts, CIOs, CTOs, academic leaders, researchers, administrators, security teams, and procurement stakeholders. You'll lead cross-functional pursuit teams across Solutions Engineering, Customer Success, Product, Research, Security, and Legal to design evaluations, pilots, technical validation, and production deployments. The role demands translating AI capabilities, limitations, governance requirements, privacy, and security considerations into clear institutional value and practical transformation roadmaps.
Key responsibilities include executing AMER higher education territory and account strategy, creating pipeline for complex multi-threaded opportunities, leading strategic transformations rather than point-solution sales, owning new-business and consumption revenue, and developing durable executive relationships across decentralized stakeholder groups. You'll bring structured market insight from higher education customers into product, policy, and go-to-market strategy, and represent OpenAI at executive forums and industry events.
Required qualifications: 10+ years selling platform-as-a-service or software-as-a-service solutions with sustained revenue achievement through complex enterprise sales. Direct experience selling to higher education institutions with understanding of decentralized decision-making, governance, procurement, privacy, and change management. Demonstrated ownership of consumption or usage-based revenue. Technical depth to learn complex AI products, lead discovery, partner with technical teams, and explain concepts at multiple levels. Experience leading strategic transformations including governance, change management, and measurable outcomes. Strong executive presence, account planning, negotiation, and cross-functional orchestration skills. High judgment, curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity.
