Travel Operations Lead

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, this role reports to the Head of Travel & Expense (T&E) and partners closely with Procurement Operations, Accounting, Finance, and business stakeholders to own and scale the company's global Events strategy, operations, and compliance.

About The Role

We are looking for a Travel Operations Lead to own and mature the operating model behind OpenAI's executive and employee travel programs. This role will be hands-on in executive travel support while also building the policies, supplier relationships, data, systems, and AI-enabled workflows that allow the program to scale with speed, confidentiality, safety, and control.

• Oversight of high-touch executive travel support, including complex commercial travel globally;
• Management of travel agency and supplier performance;
• Ownership of the executive travel policy;
• Partnership with Executive Business Partners to ensure travelers receive timely, high-quality support.

Core Employee Travel Operations

• TMC support;
• On-the-road escalation management;
• Executive travel reporting for tax and compliance purposes;
• Guest T&E programs.

What We're Looking For

We are looking for someone who understands the nuance of the travel industry and can operate at scale while continuously improving the system. This person will be hands-on in executive travel support and will own the policy, operation, supplier relationships, and support model that enable safe, efficient, and high-quality travel.

• Strong operational judgment;
• High attention to detail;
• Ability to adjust policies, programs, and tools as OpenAI scales.

You Bring

• 7+ years of experience in travel, executive operations, expense, corporate cards, sourcing, finance operations, or a related T&E role;
• Strong understanding of how the in-trip experience is affected by disruptions, destination risk, traveler context, supplier performance, policy design, booking quality, and support responsiveness;
• Strong systems understanding, with the ability to understand how data flows across procurement, travel, finance, tax, card, and reporting platforms;
• High attention to detail and a strong sense of ownership for data accuracy, completeness, confidentiality, and consistency;
• Practical judgment around AI adoption, including where automation can accelerate work, where human review matters, and how to build trust with travelers and cross-functional partners;
• Comfort working across HR, Finance, Accounting, Procurement Operations, Tax, Legal, Security, Executive Business Partners, and business stakeholders;
• Clear communication skills and the ability to explain process requirements in a practical, enablement-focused way;
• Sound judgment when handling confidential executive travel information, sensitive traveler data, guest information, and supplier performance concerns;
• Ability to operate in ambiguity, bring structure to evolving processes, and raise the bar as volume and complexity increase.

Workplace & Location

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 Own

• The executive travel operating model, including support workflows, escalation paths, SLA management, policy ownership, supplier coordination, and program governance;
• High-touch executive travel support including complex commercial travel globally, balancing speed, confidentiality, safety, and experience;
• Procurement process for executive travel, including supplier engagement, service expectations, documentation, spend visibility, and compliance with procurement and finance requirements;
• Ownership and continuous improvement of the executive travel policy, translating edge cases into clear standards, practical guardrails, and scalable approval paths;
• Partnering with Executive Business Partners to optimize support, improve satisfaction, clarify handoffs, and ensure executives and travelers can travel safely and effectively.

Oversee Employee Travel Support

• Employee travel support related to TMC service delivery, on-the-road support, disruption management, traveler enablement, and recurring issue resolution;
• Travel agency management for Navan and related program operations, including SLAs, KPIs, escalations, roadmap input, operational reviews, and continuous improvement;
• Guest T&E program for new hires, candidates, and other business guests, creating scalable rules, support workflows, payment paths, and exception handling;
• Reporting and data routines for executive travel, tax, compliance, supplier performance, traveler experience, support volume, and operational risk;
• Use of AI tools to improve travel support workflows, documentation, triage, analytics, policy interpretation, exception routing, and recurring issue detection;
• Partner cross-functionally with HR, Finance, Accounting, Procurement Operations, Tax, Legal, Security, Executive Business Partners, Recruiting, and business stakeholders;
• Build clear documentation, SOPs, program standards, and operating rhythms that make travel support easier, more consistent, and more transparent.

You Might Thrive In This Role

• If you have worked on scaled travel programs and understand how global travel operations, supplier performance, policy, traveler experience, and data connect;
• If you have experience in high-touch, highly confidential, and fast-changing environments where judgment, discretion, and service quality matter;
• If you can set up program rules that scale with volume and complexity while preserving room for practical exception handling;
• If you understand how disruptions, risk, routing, supplier behavior, traveler profiles, and support timing affect trip outcomes;
• If you enjoy turning operational complexity into clear standards, better workflows, stronger controls, and smarter systems;
• If you are already using AI tools to improve quality, speed, analysis, documentation, traveler support, or decision support;
• If you can balance hands-on support with strategic program ownership and cross-functional influence;
• If you bring an ownership mindset and are comfortable being accountable for sensitive, visible, and operationally complex work.

Compensation Range

$216K - $240K USD