OpenAI hires Dali Rajic, COO of Alphabet's Wiz, as chief revenue officer, replacing ex-Slack CEO Denise Dresser, who was hired in December 2025 and will leave
OpenAI is naming its second new chief revenue officer in less than a year, a sign of efforts to bolster sales growth ahead of a highly anticipated Wall Street debut.
BloombergShirin Ghaffary
Context & Ripple Effects
Denise Dresser joined OpenAI from Slack in December, then described the company’s Microsoft arrangement as limiting access to Bedrock customers while promoting an Amazon deal, making commercial-channel reach a live issue for the revenue organization. Dresser’s move from Slack and her later account of the Microsoft constraint frame the unusually fast handoff.
OpenAI has also separated out advertising by hiring Dave Dugan to lead ad sales under COO Brad Lightcap. That ad-sales buildout places Rajic’s appointment within a broader effort to add dedicated commercial leadership ahead of the anticipated Wall Street debut.
First-order effects
Rajic takes over OpenAI’s chief revenue officer role as Dresser departs, giving the company its second CRO transition in less than a year.
Dresser’s commercial remit, including the push to reach customers beyond Microsoft-linked channels, moves to Rajic during a period when OpenAI is explicitly focused on sales growth.
Second-order effects
OpenAI’s sales teams and channel partners face a new decision-maker while the company is building out separate ad-sales leadership, increasing the need to coordinate how enterprise and advertising revenue efforts are presented to customers.
Amazon’s relationship with OpenAI becomes a more consequential commercial route to execute on, after Dresser identified customer access through Bedrock as constrained by the Microsoft deal.
Third-order effects
If OpenAI continues staffing revenue, advertising and finance with separate senior leaders, its commercialization model will look less like a single product-sales function and more like a multi-channel organization designed for public-market scrutiny.
Rapid turnover in the CRO post would make continuity of partner strategy and customer coverage a central operating test as OpenAI broadens its revenue machinery.
The trend: OpenAI is building specialized commercial leadership across sales, partnerships and advertising as it prepares its business for a potential public-market debut.
From the very moment I joined OpenAI, I predicted that mounting financial pressures mean that teams with unclear connections to near-term revenue will be in danger. (Mechanize folks can corroborate this prediction.) This trend is already playing out.
Rajic is Brockman's first key appointment in his newly expanded position overseeing OAI's day to day business. More in his words and from OAI's blog on the change: [image]
NEW: OpenAI chief revenue officer Denise Dresser is leaving after less than a year to pursue other opportunities. OpenAI's new CRO will be Dali Rajic, President of Alphabet-owned cyber firm Wiz. Latest exec change at the company https://www.bloomberg.com/...
OpenAI is replacing chief revenue officer Denise Dresser with Wiz president Dali Rajic, just 8 months after Dresser joined. Meanwhile, Greg Brockman told staff that total ARR grew 20%+ and enterprise ARR grew 32% in July. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
This is a big deal. The ask of a CRO in a role like this is to build everything you need, put system, processes, a team, systems, guidelines, and culture in place. She already has $ but the upside here would be huge I presume... so things are so bad she just bounced? What we [ima…
🚨BREAKING: OpenAI Chief Revenue Officer just quit after only 8 months, their SECOND CRO in less than a year... and their COO also quit yesterday what is going on at OpenAI [image]
Talent moves before market share does. Dali Rajic leaving Wiz for @OpenAI's CRO seat is one of those quiet signals. Big shifts are underway in cloud security. The next chapter is already being written. @AmiramShachar, the wind's picking up.
OpenAI is a very dynamic company. As someone with an inside experience of the dynamics that lead to people swapping in and out, my own view is that while it can be stressful for the people involved, by and large it is healthy for the organism of the company. It makes it unusual…
Sharing the note I sent to the team today. I'm incredibly proud of all we've accomplished together and deeply grateful to the extraordinary people and customers who made this chapter so meaningful. …
so OpenAI hit $40 billion in run rate (so like $3bn in monthly revenue) months after Anthropic did, mysteriously dropping the same day that its CRO left and Anthropic had a story in the FT pumping its IPO. Revenue growth definitely slowing [image]