T&E Events 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

You'll own the global T&E event strategy and operations, acting as a strategic leader and hands-on executor supporting Events teams across the organization. Expect to align with event owners around the company and set the process roadmap for the company's Procurement & T&E processes, lead platform deployment and lifecycle management, manage key partners and stakeholders, and personally drive process standardization & cost optimization. You will also be a key contributor to the overall T&E process design and governance, ensuring tight controls and scalability across Travel, Expense, Events, and Card programs.Target mix: 50% program leadership, 50% hands-on execution (flexes with project roadmap and volume).

What we're looking for:

• We're looking for a strategic leader with deep experience in corporate events and T&E operations who can scale systems and processes without losing sight of the details.

• Proven experience in Strategic Meeting Management Programs (SMMP), corporate travel and expense management, travel sourcing, and/or travel consulting.

• Hands-on expertise in designing, standardizing, and automating processes across T&E, including policy management, systems integration, and controls alignment.

• Experience leading global T&E events strategy, including policy development, venue/room block sourcing, and platform management (e.g., Planned, Cvent).

• A strong controls mindset aligned to SOX, with experience driving audit readiness and partnering cross-functionally across Compliance, Legal, Privacy, Procurement, Accounting, and Finance.

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:

• Strategy & Policy: Lead the global company-wide T&E & Procurement event strategy and associated policies (room blocks, venues, group meals, payments, reconciliation, etc.).

• Stakeholder Partnership: Partner with Events teams, Executive Business Partners (EBPs), department leaders, and cross-functional teams (Compliance, Legal, Privacy, PTP, Cards, Security) to align event programs with business needs and compliance requirements.

• Supplier & Spend Management: Optimize supplier strategy and ongoing event operations.

• Controls & Standardization: Create and standardize event policy + controls across all organizations and managers.

• Scalability & Standardization: Drive global standardization and operational scalability. Act as the primary DRI for process optimization and enforcement of compliance guardrails.

• Compliance & Audit: Ensure SOX-compliant T&E & Procurement policies across all events.

• Process Design & Governance: Lead and enhance the full T&E event process design and governance. Lead SOP documentation, controls alignment, and audit readiness.

• Integration: Integrate T&E policy, budgeting/forecasting, travel, and card programs into a cohesive workflow for holistic event programs management.

• Data & Systems:Ensure high data accuracy and reliable integrations across ERP, analytics, travel, tax, payroll, and related downstream systems.

• Category Management/Sourcing (Events): Own the global events category strategy and supplier base. Lead sourcing, RFPs/RFQs, negotiations, contracting support, and vendor selection, partnering with internal sourcing teams.

• Process Improvement (Events): Map current-state event operations, redesign workflows, controls, tooling, and handoffs across the events program. Define KPIs/reporting and drive adoption of better operating standards globally. Manage continuous process improvement through the deployment of new policies and platforms, ensuring a great experience and reduction of cycle time across hotel room blocks, venues, and group meals and other T&E related event purchases

• Event Technology/Product: Own internal event-related products/tools/platforms. Define roadmap and requirements for event tech or event operations systems. Lead the integration of emerging AI throughout the workflow.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Bring 8+ years of experience in M&E, SMMP, corporate T&E, Procurement, or Finance Operations.

• Have thrived in high-growth, scaling environments, balancing long-term process design with hands-on execution.

• Offer deep technical proficiency in T&E policy, global events management, card programs, and regulatory compliance (SOX, tax implications, etc.).

• Have designed and automated T&E/Events workflows, leveraging ERP/AP automation, OCR, approval routing, and AI.

• Maintain a strong controls mindset and can confidently partner with Accounting, Procurement, FP&A, and Legal/Compliance.

• Have hands-on experience with tools like Oracle Fusion, Planned, Navan, VNDLY, Jira, or similar enterprise platforms, especially in integrated environments.

Compensation Range: $216K - $240K USD

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. 

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