EMEA Vendor Lead, Ad Sales

About the Team The SMB Ads team helps businesses discover, adopt, and grow with OpenAI’s advertising solutions. As we scale globally, we are building a high-performing sales organization that combines operational excellence, strong customer experiences, and AI-native ways of working. We partner closely with Sales, Revenue Operations, Finance, Product, Enablement, Program Management, and external BPO partners to drive advertiser acquisition, activation, revenue growth, and retention. About the Role We are hiring a Vendor Lead to build and scale the outsourced operating model that supports our Ads business in EMEA and globally. This is a builder role. You will design the governance, performance systems, capacity plans, quality programs, and accountability mechanisms that enable our BPO partners to deliver exceptional commercial outcomes. You will work across internal teams and external partner leadership to improve seller productivity, advertiser growth, forecasting accuracy, and operational quality. This is a highly cross-functional individual contributor role that sits at the intersection of Ads Sales, SMB, Revenue Operations, Finance, Enablement, Product, Program Management, and external BPO leadership. You will help define how OpenAI operates with external partners and build the systems, processes, and accountability mechanisms that enable the business to scale. In this role, you will: - Build and scale BPO operating models, governance structures, and performance frameworks for Ads. - Drive results across revenue, pipeline, advertiser acquisition, activation, retention, seller productivity, and quality. - Lead business reviews and executive governance forums with BPO partners and internal stakeholders. - Develop scorecards, forecasts, inspection mechanisms, and escalation processes that surface risks early. - Improve sales quality through playbooks, QA frameworks, coaching programs, and performance analysis. - Partner with Sales, Revenue Operations, Product, Enablement, Finance, and Program teams on new products, markets, and sales motions. - Create workforce and capacity plans aligned to business demand and growth forecasts. - Determine which customer segments and sales motions should be handled by BPO partners versus internal teams. - Use AI, automation, and scalable systems to improve execution, visibility, and seller productivity. You might thrive in this role if you have: - 5+ years of experience in vendor operations, commercial operations, outsourced sales, or a scaled revenue organization. - Experience in Ads, advertiser growth, performance marketing, or a comparable SMB sales motion. - Working knowledge of sales funnels, forecasting, advertiser activation, spend growth, retention, and churn. - Experience improving operating processes, scorecards, quality programs, or capacity plans across vendors or markets. - Strong analytical, operational, and communication skills, with the ability to turn data into clear actions and work effectively across teams. - Interest in using AI and automation to improve execution, visibility, and seller productivity. Workplace & Location - This role is based in Dublin, Ireland. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week. Occasional travel will be required. 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. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement. Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of e