Economic Development Lead

About the Team

OpenAI is building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Site Readiness & Development team owns the upstream diligence and development work required to convert powered-land opportunities into executable infrastructure options.

About the Role

The Economic Development Lead works upstream across the national pipeline, beginning engagement before a project is public and helping shape the incentive, relationship, community-benefit, and approval strategy for sites under evaluation. This role enters early during site evaluation and deal formation; once a project moves toward announcement, the dedicated Community Engagement Lead becomes the local owner while the Economic Development Lead continues to support agreement-linked commitments and incentive execution.

Key Responsibilities

- Own incentive strategy and negotiations.

- Build local and state economic-development relationships.

- Develop community-benefit commitments tied to project agreements.

- Coordinate with Site Selection, Land, Power, Legal, Finance, and Community Engagement.

- Identify political, commercial, and approval risks early.

- Transition local relationships and commitments to the assigned Community Engagement Lead as a project moves toward announcement.

Qualifications

- 6+ years in economic development, public-private partnerships, infrastructure development, government affairs, or a related field.

- Experience structuring and negotiating incentive packages for large infrastructure, energy, technology, or real estate projects.

- Strong relationships and judgment across local, state, and regional economic-development stakeholders.

- Ability to connect incentives, community benefits, legal commitments, project economics, and approval risk.

- Excellent cross-functional coordination, negotiation, and executive-communication skills.