OpenAI on Thursday named Dali Rajic as chief revenue officer, putting him in charge of the company’s worldwide sales and revenue efforts as enterprise adoption of AI picks up speed.
Former CRO Denise Dresser will depart after a handoff period, during which she will continue working with the business team to support customers, the company said in a statement.
The company framed Rajic’s hire as part of preparing for a new wave of models it expects to reshape how organizations operate.
Rajic’s most recent role was president and chief operating officer at Wiz, which Google has acquired. Before that, he held senior operating posts at Zscaler and AppDynamics, including a customer and revenue leadership role at AppDynamics.
OpenAI’s products now serve more than one billion weekly active users and more than two million businesses, which it said is double the business count from a year earlier.
Greg Brockman tied the leadership shift to what he described as a shift toward a "compute-powered economy," adding that "Dali will turn what we’ve learned into repeatable execution as we build out the full system to make AI broadly useful for people and businesses."
Brockman also credited Dresser with building the revenue organization and strengthening relationships with large customers during what the company called an early stage for both OpenAI and enterprise AI adoption.
OpenAI also said it has set up a strategic partnership with Chad Peets and RPT Partners aimed at speeding up efforts to assemble what it called a world-class go-to-market group.
In a statement included with the announcement, Rajic said, "I’m excited to join the team, build on the momentum already in place, and lead the revenue organization as we help customers realize the full value of AI."
This is the second c-suite executive to depart the ChatGPT maker this week. OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap announced his departure from the company in a post on X, sharing the memo he sent to the OpenAI team.
“Team, it is bittersweet to share that I’ll be moving on from OpenAI to start something new. I feel incredibly fortunate to have spent most of the last decade pursuing our mission and building this company. Sitting here today, mission success feels within sight. It has been the honor of my life to help bring us to this point, and to do it alongside all of you.”
Lightcap plans to remain with OpenAI for the next few weeks. It is not clear who will take over his role at the company.
As anticipation builds around a potential IPO, OpenAI is deepening its bench. Last month, the Microsoft-backed (NASDAQ:MSFT) company rehired Lilian Weng to lead a new research team focused on accelerating the company’s internal AI research. The team will focus on research into recursive self-improvement, a process where AI systems improve their own capabilities through repeated iterations.
Liz Wamai was brought on in June as head of recruiting after spending more than three years at Netflix, as well as former Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) India and South Asia President Prabhjeet Singh, as its managing director for the country.
White House artificial intelligence adviser Dean Ball also joined OpenAI in a role focused on shaping frontier AI policy.
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