OpenAI reshuffles leadership as 2 executives take medical leave

OpenAI is reshuffling its senior leadership after product and business chief Fidji Simo announced she is taking several weeks of medical leave to treat a worsening neuroimmune condition, and Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch will also be taking leave.

In a staff memo reviewed by Axios, Simo revealed that POTS — postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome — had flared up again just weeks before her May start date at OpenAI, where she had arrived after leading Instacart as its CEO. “For my entire time here, I’ve postponed medical tests and new therapies to stay completely focused on the job and not miss a single day of work,” Simo said in the memo. “It’s now clear that I’ve pushed a little too far and I really need to try new interventions to stabilize my health.”

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Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and serves as its president, has been tapped to handle product oversight while Simo is away. Filling out the interim coverage, Bloomberg reported that Jason Kwon, Sarah Friar, and Denise Dresser — the company’s strategy, finance, and revenue chiefs, respectively — will each take on portions of Simo’s workload.

COO Brad Lightcap, a longtime fixture of OpenAI’s executive team, will shift his focus to special projects in a newly created role that places him directly under Altman’s oversight. Bloomberg reported that private equity partners will be central to the enterprise software expansion Lightcap has been tasked to oversee. Lightcap’s day-to-day operating responsibilities will largely fall to Dresser, who will answer to Simo in the new structure. CNBC reported that oversight of OpenAI’s government affairs and its OpenAI for Countries program would transfer to the strategy team.

The same memo contained a separate disclosure: Rouch, who has been managing an advanced breast cancer diagnosis for roughly 18 months, used the memo to announce she would be stepping away from her CMO duties to devote her full attention to treatment. “At a certain point, you have to be honest about your limits. I’ve reached mine,” Rouch said on LinkedIn. A search is already underway for Rouch’s permanent replacement; Simo indicated that the outgoing CMO may take on a scaled-back role once her health permits.

“We have a strong leadership team focused on our biggest priorities: advancing frontier research, growing our global user base of nearly 1 billion users, and powering enterprise use cases,” OpenAI said in a statement. “We’re well-positioned to keep executing with continuity and momentum.”

The changes come at a significant moment for the company. The company’s recent $122 billion raise — achieved at an $852 billion valuation — has come as it also moves toward what could be an eventual debut on public markets. On the revenue side, OpenAI is exploring advertising inside ChatGPT, and the company has been working toward a unified app that would bring its web browser, coding assistant, and AI chatbot under one roof.

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