OpenAI Names Ex-Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar as CFO, Kevin Weil as CPO

OpenAI has named a new chief financial officer (CFO) and a new chief product officer (CPO) as it prepares for its “next phase of growth.”

Sarah Friar, former CEO of Nextdoor, has joined OpenAI as CFO, and Kevin Weil, former president, product and business at Planet Labs, has joined the company as CPO, OpenAI said in a Monday (June 10) press release.

“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,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in the release.

Before serving as CEO of Nextdoor, Friar was CFO at Square and worked at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Salesforce, according to the release. She is a board member of Walmart and Consensys.

As CFO at OpenAI, Friar will lead the finance team that provides continued investment in the company’s core research efforts and ensures it can scale, per the release.

“My goal is to help OpenAI continue excelling at what it does best — producing top-tier research and collaborating to maximize the benefits of AI tools for everyone,” Friar said in the release.

Prior to serving as president, product and business at Planet Labs, Weil was co-founder of the Libra cryptocurrency and vice president of product for Novi at Facebook; vice president of product at Instagram; and senior vice president of product at X, formerly Twitter, according to the release.

As CPO at OpenAI, Weil will lead a product team focused on applying the company’s research to products and services, per the release.

“The product team at OpenAI has set the pace for both breakthrough innovation and thoughtful deployment of AI products,” Weil said in the release. “I am thrilled to be part of the next phase of growth, as we continue to safely and responsibly build towards AGI (artificial general intelligence).”

The news of these appointments comes on the same day that Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI in which ChatGPT 4o will be incorporated into iOS, macOS and iPadOS.

It also comes at a time when the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are reportedly investigating whether the dominance of OpenAI, Microsoft and Nvidia is squeezing competition in the AI industry.

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