OpenAI announced on Monday that it has hired Sarah Friar, former CEO of Nextdoor (NYSE:KIND), as its first Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, Kevin Weil, who previously held roles at Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, has been appointed as Chief Product Officer.
Friar, who also served as CFO at Square (NYSE:SQSP) and sits on Walmart’s (NYSE:WMT) board, has an extensive background that includes positions at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), McKinsey, and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM).
“Sarah and Kevin bring a depth of experience that will enable OpenAI to scale our operations, set a strategy for the next phase of growth, and ensure that our teams have the resources they need to continue to thrive,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
These appointments follow significant leadership changes at OpenAI. In May, co-founder and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever departed and was replaced by Jakub Pachocki, former Director of Research who led the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five.
Sutskever played a controversial role in Altman’s firing and rehiring last November. Initially, he supported Altman’s removal but later signed an employee letter demanding Altman’s return and expressed regret for his involvement in the board’s actions. After Altman’s reinstatement, Sutskever was removed from the board, leaving his position uncertain.
Earlier this year, founding member and AI researcher Andrej Karpathy also left OpenAI. In March, OpenAI appointed new directors, including Sam Altman, Sue Desmond-Hellmann (former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Nicole Seligman (former president of Sony Entertainment), and Fidji Simo (CEO of Instacart).
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