Head of Finance - Data Centers

Job description

About the Role As Head of Finance - Data Centers, you will be the finance leader for OpenAI’s self-built data center efforts. You will partner with teams across infrastructure, real estate, energy, construction, procurement, and finance to turn proposed sites into sound investment decisions and funded projects. This role spans the full development lifecycle: evaluating opportunities, building investment cases, forecasting capital needs, managing construction budgets, and helping determine how projects should be financed. You will give leadership a clear view of project economics, funding requirements, and risks as we build data center capacity at scale. In this role, you will: Lead financial evaluation of proposed data center and related power infrastructure projects, including site economics, development costs, capacity phasing, lifecycle costs, and key risks. Build and own project-level models and capital expenditure forecasts that connect construction schedules, power delivery, equipment procurement, contingencies, and funding needs. Establish capital budgets and financial controls for active builds. Track commitments, actual spending, change orders, and forecasts to completion; identify cost or schedule risks early. Partner with development, engineering, energy, construction, and procurement leaders on decisions that affect cost, timing, and long-term performance. Work with Treasury, Corporate Finance, Tax, and Legal to evaluate financing options, including project or construction debt, leases, joint ventures, and other partnership structures where appropriate. Prepare investment recommendations and capital approval materials for senior leadership, translating complex project details into clear choices and tradeoffs. Build a consistent portfolio view of project costs, cash requirements, milestones, and financial performance. Partner with Accounting and operations teams through project completion and handoff. You might thrive in this role if you have: Prior experience as the finance leader for large-scale data center builds or major electric generation projects. You have directly owned investment analysis, capital budgets, and financial decisions through development and construction. Prior experience in investment banking or private equity. This is a strong preferred part of the background for this role. 10+ years of experience across strategic finance,…