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OpenAI is building an advertising platform for an AI-powered world, targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The SMB Ads Marketing team is establishing this business from the ground up, defining how businesses discover the platform, become successful advertisers, and scale their investment.
The SMB Innovation Sales & Strategy Lead will identify, incubate, and scale new revenue opportunities across OpenAI's SMB Ads business. This foundational role combines strategic thinking, analytical rigor, and hands-on execution to develop differentiated customer propositions, validate product opportunities, and launch new go-to-market programs.
Key Responsibilities:
- Identify untapped opportunities across SMB segments, industries, and channels. Build business cases and launch pilots to validate customer demand and commercial potential.
- Design new acquisition, activation, and expansion programs, including industry-specific and assisted-growth approaches. Partner with sales teams and outsourced sales providers to connect self-serve adoption with sales-assisted engagement.
- Translate customer discovery into product opportunities. Partner with Product and Engineering to evaluate solutions and use customer and commercial evidence to guide investment decisions.
- Develop actionable SMB segmentation based on needs, business characteristics, advertising maturity, behavior, growth potential, and economics. Tailor acquisition, onboarding, service, and expansion across customer channels.
- Own pilot delivery and measurement across incremental revenue, conversion, customer outcomes, and cost to serve. Scale successful programs through clear playbooks; refine or retire those that miss success criteria.
- Shape SMB strategy and investment recommendations with leadership and Strategy & Operations, drawing on market analysis, segmentation, and pilot results.
- Lead the innovation portfolio through clear roadmaps, performance measures, and decision milestones. Resolve delivery challenges and transition proven programs into ongoing operations.
You will work across Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Data Science, leading initiatives from opportunity assessment through customer discovery, commercial pilots, and transition to scale.
Requirements:
- Approximately 8–10 years of experience in business incubation, growth, strategy, business operations, product strategy, or consulting, with substantial ownership of implementation and commercial results.
- Understanding of SMB customers and self-serve business models, including how sales-assisted and partner-led approaches support growth.
- Demonstrated success taking initiatives from customer insight and business case through pilot, launch, and measurable impact.
- Strong analytical and financial modeling skills across opportunity sizing, unit economics, funnel analysis, and experimentation.
- Ability to translate customer segmentation into differentiated propositions, engagement models, and investment decisions.
- Direct experience working with customers to uncover needs and shape product and go-to-market recommendations.
- Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives, align senior stakeholders, and resolve competing priorities.
- Combination of strategic analysis with hands-on customer discovery, pilot delivery, and program execution.
- Sound judgment in ambiguous environments and ability to move effectively across complex organizations.
Preferred Experience:
- Experience in advertising platforms, marketplaces, or SMB technology businesses.
- Management consulting experience combined with substantial hands-on operating responsibility.
- Experience in both established technology companies and startups.
- Experience with outsourced sales channels, sales-assisted growth, or industry-specific commercial programs.
