Frontier AI Research · San Francisco
OpenAI is looking for a senior strategic risk advisor to help the Security organization anticipate, interpret, and act on high-consequence risks at the intersection of cybersecurity, national security, geopolitics, ecosystem dynamics, regulation, and institutional trust.
This role is for someone who can move fluently between technical security teams, executives, policymakers, external experts, and commercial stakeholders. The right person will bring judgment formed through national security, cyber, diplomacy, intelligence, and senior advisory work, and will turn complex external developments into clear choices for OpenAI leadership.
About the Team
The Security Strategy & Influence team exists to make cybersecurity a strategic advantage for OpenAI. As AI systems become more capable and globally consequential, the most important security questions increasingly sit above the purely operational layer: model deployment, international expansion, state-linked threats, partner access, infrastructure dependencies, geopolitical risk, external trust, and OpenAI’s freedom to operate.
About the Role
As a Senior Strategic Risk Advisor, you will help OpenAI connect technical security realities to geopolitical, policy, and ecosystem developments, turning that context into clear guidance for consequential security and operating choices.
We’re looking for a senior, trusted advisor who brings strong cybersecurity and geopolitical fluency and can translate complex risk into clear strategic direction.
This role is based in Washington, DC. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. Some domestic and international travel may be required for high-leverage meetings, conferences, and government engagements.
In this role, you will:
Advise security and company leadership on strategic risks, connecting technical security priorities to broader business, policy, geopolitical, regulatory, and operating realities.
Produce strategic analysis and contribute to scenario planning and executive briefings on cyber, geopolitical, policy, regulatory, and ecosystem developments, translating them into decision-ready recommendations for OpenAI’s security posture, resource priorities, and operating decisions.
Monitor and interpret external events, policy shifts, geopolitical developments, regulatory changes, and ecosystem dynamics relevant to OpenAI’s security posture and operating environment.
Provide strategic risk and security input into scenario-planning exercises for high-consequence questions, including model deployment, regional expansion, sensitive partnerships, and strategic threat evolution.
Build and maintain trusted relationships with policymakers, researchers, think tanks, academics, national security practitioners, technology leaders, and other external experts.
Help develop credible external positions and executive materials for government engagements, conferences, and other high-stakes forums.
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have 10+ years of experience advising executives, boards, governments, or national security leaders on cyber, geopolitical, or digital risk.
Deep familiarity with cybersecurity, state-linked threats, insider risk, intelligence analysis, and strategic risk management.
Experience translating complex technical ideas for non-technical senior decision makers.
Strong external network across national security, cyber, policy, technology, academia, think tanks, or security communities.
Exceptional written and oral communication skills, with demonstrated ability to produce clear, decision-oriented analysis under pressure.
Technical security qualifications or hands-on cyber background.
Have a U.S. or U.K. Government Security Clearance, or willingness and eligibility to obtain one.
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.
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.
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