Tax Director

Responsibilities

• Lead OpenAI's global tax infrastructure strategy supporting hyperscale AI infrastructure expansion.
• Develop and execute tax strategies supporting site selection, data center development, and long-term infrastructure investments.
• Structure, negotiate, and administer complex state, local, federal, and international incentive programs, including property tax abatements, PILOT agreements, sales and use tax incentives, grants, investment tax credits, and other economic development programs.
• Partner closely with Infrastructure, Real Estate, Finance, Treasury, Legal, Public Policy, Energy, and Engineering throughout the lifecycle of major infrastructure projects - from early site evaluation through construction and ongoing operations.
• Lead tax due diligence, financial modeling, and incentive valuation for new infrastructure investments and strategic expansion opportunities.
• Establish scalable governance processes to manage incentive compliance, reporting obligations, audit readiness, and ongoing stakeholder communications.
• Partner with Tax Technology and Financial Engineering teams to automate property tax, incentive administration, and indirect tax processes while improving data quality and operational efficiency.
• Build executive-level reporting that communicates financial impact, investment returns, tax savings, compliance status, and strategic risks across the infrastructure portfolio.
• Serve as OpenAI's primary tax advisor on infrastructure transactions, public-private partnerships, energy investments, and large-scale capital deployment initiatives.
• Build strong relationships with state and local governments, economic development organizations, utilities, external advisors, and industry partners.
• Monitor legislative and regulatory developments affecting data centers, AI infrastructure, energy, property taxation, and government incentives, translating emerging policy into actionable business strategy.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in state and local tax, property tax, tax incentives, infrastructure tax, or economic development, including significant in-house leadership experience.
• Deep experience supporting large-scale infrastructure investments, data centers, manufacturing, semiconductor, energy, or other capital-intensive industries.
• Demonstrated success negotiating complex economic development incentives with state and local governments.
• Strong understanding of property tax, sales and use tax, construction taxation, and infrastructure-related tax issues.
• Experience building scalable tax processes and governance frameworks supporting multi-billion-dollar capital investment programs.
• Strong financial modeling skills with the ability to evaluate investment returns, incentive value, and long-term financial impacts.
• Experience partnering effectively with executive leadership and influencing cross-functional strategic decisions.
• Exceptional communication and negotiation skills with the ability to represent OpenAI before government officials, external advisors, and senior executives.
• Proven ability to lead highly cross-functional initiatives across Finance, Legal, Infrastructure, Engineering, Treasury, Public Policy, and Operations.
• Experience building, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams in fast-growing organizations.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience supporting hyperscale data center development or cloud infrastructure investments.
• Experience negotiating incentives across multiple U.S. states and international jurisdictions.
• Familiarity with energy markets, utility incentive programs, renewable energy investments, or transmission infrastructure.
• Experience implementing tax technology solutions supporting property tax, incentives, and indirect tax processes.
• CPA, JD, MST, or equivalent advanced tax qualification.
• Experience in a high-growth technology company or other rapidly scaling global organization.