Partner Director, IBM North America

About the Team

OpenAI’s GTM Partnerships team builds a strategic, global partner ecosystem to accelerate customer success, enable responsible enterprise AI adoption, and drive durable growth in support of OpenAI’s mission. We work cross-functionally across Sales, Solutions, Product, Engineering, Security, Legal, Finance, Marketing, Operations, and Customer Success to translate strategic partnerships into measurable outcomes for customers.

Global systems integrators and technology services partners help enterprises move from AI strategy to production deployment. This role will lead OpenAI’s co-sell initiatives with IBM across North America, bringing together IBM’s consulting, technology, industry, and delivery capabilities with OpenAI’s products and platform. You will turn the global partnership strategy into a focused North America sales plan and repeatable field execution that delivers customer and commercial impact.

About the Role

We are hiring a Partner Sales Director to own IBM’s North America co-sell execution and measurable contribution to OpenAI growth. You will translate the global IBM partnership strategy into a prioritized regional business plan, activate IBM and OpenAI account teams, and drive qualified pipeline, closed business and sustained production adoption in partnership with sales, technical and delivery leaders.

The role owns North America account prioritization, field activation, pursuit orchestration and partner forecasting within the global plan. Global partnership strategy, cross-region programs and commercial frameworks remain with global leadership; customer account ownership remains with the relevant OpenAI sales teams.

This is a strategic and hands-on leadership role. You will connect senior executive engagement with joint account planning, co-selling, solution and delivery alignment, field enablement, governance, and day-to-day execution. Success requires a strong understanding of how a large, matrixed services and technology organization operates, commercial discipline, technical fluency, and the ability to align teams without formal authority.

The ideal candidate has led a high-impact partnership with IBM, built measurable pipeline and customer outcomes across North America, and knows how to turn partnership GTM strategy into account-level execution and successful deployments.

In this role, you will:

• Own North America partner sales and GTM with IBM, including regional strategy, executive alignment, joint planning, pipeline growth, customer outcomes, delivery-readiness coordination and escalation, and long-term expansion, in alignment with the global alliance.

• Develop and execute a North America joint business plan with clear account and industry priorities, investments, decision rights, milestones, and measures of success.

• Build trusted relationships across IBM Consulting, IBM Technology, North America industry and regional leadership, alliance teams, client account leaders, sales organizations, architects, and delivery leaders, while staying aligned with global stakeholders.

• Translate executive priorities into repeatable field execution spanning account mapping, opportunity qualification, co-selling, solution development, technical engagement, delivery handoffs, and escalation.

• Shape joint solutions and industry plays that combine OpenAI capabilities with IBM’s consulting, technology, hybrid cloud, data, security, governance, and delivery strengths.

• Lead joint account planning and strategic customer pursuits with IBM and OpenAI field teams across North America, with particular focus on complex and regulated enterprises.

• Create a clear engagement model for OpenAI sellers and technical teams, including when to involve IBM, how opportunities are qualified, who owns each step, and how channel conflict is resolved.

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Solutions, Security, Legal, Finance, and Commercial teams to support complex customer engagements and remove technical, contractual, compliance, and operational blockers.

• Build IBM’s North America field and delivery readiness through executive sponsorship, sales enablement, technical training, reusable solution patterns, and disciplined delivery handoffs.

• Establish regional governance across executive business reviews, pipeline inspection, forecasting, milestone tracking, performance reporting, and escalation, connected to the global alliance operating model.

• Own and track agreed North America commercial targets across qualified partner-sourced and co-sell pipeline, conversion to closed business, OpenAI revenue or consumption, and production adoption, with clear attribution and no double counting. 

• Align resource priorities with OpenAI sales and technical leaders for North America opportunities with the greatest strategic value, commercial potential, customer impact, delivery readiness, and repeatability.

• Represent OpenAI in senior partner, customer, and industry engagements with clarity, sound judgment, and strong executive presence.

• Build the regional operating model and identify the team capacity needed to scale the IBM partnership across North America.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Significant experience leading strategic alliances, GSI, or advisory partnerships, ecosystem sales, business development, or enterprise go-to-market programs in AI, cloud, data, SaaS, or enterprise technology.

• Direct experience working with IBM and deep familiarity with its North America organization, consulting and technology businesses, incentives, decision-making networks, commercial model, and enterprise delivery motions.

• A proven record of turning a strategic partnership into a qualified pipeline, closed business and production adoption, with clear evidence of your contribution to the commercial results.

• Experience designing and scaling joint operating models across large, matrixed organizations, including governance, account planning, incentives, staffing, delivery handoffs, and escalation.

• Demonstrated success shaping and advancing complex C-suite enterprise transformation opportunities from strategy through production deployment.

• Strong executive presence and the ability to build credibility with senior IBM and customer leaders while remaining close to operating details.

• Commercial judgment and experience prioritizing investments, qualifying opportunities, managing forecasts, and making clear tradeoffs.

• Technical fluency across enterprise AI, cloud and hybrid environments, data platforms, integration, security, governance, risk, and modern application architectures.

• Strong cross-functional leadership and the ability to align Sales, Solutions, Product, Engineering, Security, Legal, Finance, Marketing, and Operations without direct authority.

• Experience building partner enablement, joint solutions, industry plays, and scalable field engagement models across North America.

• Comfort operating in ambiguity and creating structure, accountability, and momentum in a rapidly evolving market.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, negotiation, and executive presentation skills.

• A builder mindset, high ownership, low ego, and a consistent focus on customer value and responsible AI adoption.

What success looks like

• OpenAI and IBM have a clear North America growth strategy, differentiated joint value proposition, executive governance model, and measurable business plan aligned with the global alliance.

• IBM and OpenAI field teams across North America know when and how to engage one another, and qualified opportunities progress through a consistent co-sell and delivery motion.

• The North America partnership generates qualified pipeline and converts priority opportunities into secure, successful production deployments with demonstrable customer value.

• Joint solution patterns and industry plays become repeatable rather than remaining bespoke.

• OpenAI resources are allocated transparently toward the highest-impact opportunities.

• IBM’s North America teams demonstrate growing readiness and accountability across selling, architecture, implementation, and customer success.

• The North America partnership earns sustained executive sponsorship and delivers measurable year-over-year growth.

 

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.

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