Accounts Payable Leader

About the Team The Procurement organization enables our mission by ensuring every dollar is spent responsibly, compliantly, and efficiently. As a key part of this function, the Accounts Payable (AP) team partners closely with Procurement Operations, Accounting, Finance, and business stakeholders to deliver a seamless, scalable payment experience. About the Role You’ll own AP strategy and jump into day-to-day execution (a true player–coach). Expect to set the roadmap, lead people and partners, act as the primary escalation point, and also personally clear complex exceptions, process work during spikes, and close the books alongside the team. You’ll also partner with hardware and operations stakeholders to define and launch asset management and receiving processes that enable 3-way match—including building where these processes don’t yet exist. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: - End-to-end ownership (Indirect & Direct): intake, 2/3-way match, exception handling, disbursements, vendor inquiries, and close activities.

• Escalation lead: act as the primary escalation point; partner closely with the hiring manager and Accounting to rapidly resolve complex exceptions, payment holds, and close blockers.
• Stand up Direct foundations: partner with hardware and operations stakeholders to define and launch asset management and receiving processes required for 3-way match—including building where processes don’t yet exist.
• Scale for growth: improve cycle time, first-pass yield, and on-time payment; strengthen PO discipline and receiving alignment; drive root-cause reduction of top exceptions.
• Controls & compliance: maintain SOX-aligned approvals and documentation; ensure segregation of duties; lead internal/external audit requests and remediation.
• Automation & design: design and implement ERP/AP workflow, OCR/approvals, and integration hygiene to reduce manual touchpoints; partner with Procurement and Accounting on data quality.
• Vendor experience: enable self-service where possible; resolve escalations (price/qty/tax mismatches, credits, banking); negotiate operational terms with Finance/Procurement partners.
• People & partners: manage, mentor, and develop AP staff; oversee BPO/offshore capacity with clear SLAs/KPIs and a continuous-improvement cadence.
• Reporting & comms: own AP dashboards and narratives—aging, cycle time, exceptions, payment forecast, cash needs, and risk themes; communicate progress to leadership. You might thrive in this role if you: - Bring 8+ years of experience in Accounts Payable or Accounting, including 3+ years leading teams or programs across both Indirect and Direct spend types.
• Have thrived in high-growth, scaling environments, balancing long-term process design with hands-on execution.
• Offer deep technical proficiency in 2-/3-way match, PO discipline, tax handling (sales/use/VAT), and month-end close (accruals, reconciliations).
• Have designed and automated AP workflows, leveraging ERP/AP automation, OCR, approval routing, and RPA—and are willing to get hands-on during volume spikes.
• Maintain a strong controls mindset aligned to SOX, and can confidently partner with Accounting, Procurement, FP&A, and Supply Chain.
• Have hands-on experience with tools like Oracle Fusion, Zip, Navan, VNDLY, Brightflag, Jira, or similar enterprise platforms—especially in integrated environments.
• Have proven experience across Indirect and Direct spend, ideally in high-growth, scaling environments—you’re comfortable building for the future while handling the demands of today. 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

• Review Openai's procurement and accounting processes to understand how you can optimize the Accounts Payable function, and be prepared to discuss your ideas during the interview.
• Develop a portfolio or work samples that demonstrate your experience with AP automation tools, such as Bill.com or Concur, and highlight your ability to scale payment processes.
• Prepare to discuss your approach to 3-way match and asset management, including examples of how you've implemented these processes in previous roles, and how you can apply them to Openai's unique hardware and operations requirements.
• Research Openai's company culture and values, and be prepared to explain how your leadership style and management approach align with their emphasis on responsibility, compliance, and efficiency.
• Practice discussing your experience with financial close processes, including how you've managed month-end and year-end closes, and how you can apply this expertise to Openai's accounting and finance teams.
• Be prepared to negotiate salary based on industry standards for remote Accounts Payable Leaders, and research Openai's typical salary range for this role to make a strong case for your compensation package.