Accounts Payable Manager, Direct

About the Team

The Procurement organization enables our mission by ensuring every dollar is spent responsibly, compliantly, and efficiently. As a key part of this function, the Accounts Payable (AP) team partners closely with Procurement Operations, Accounting, Finance, and business stakeholders to deliver a seamless, scalable payment experience.

About the Role

We’re looking for an Accounts Payable Manager to own and scale AP operations for Direct Procurement and Supply Chain. You’ll be responsible for end-to-end AP performance—ensuring accurate, timely payments and strong controls in a high-growth environment.

This is a hands-on IC leadership role. You’ll partner with BPO teams to execute, while owning processes, systems, and outcomes. You’ll resolve complex issues, support executive stakeholders, and maintain a high bar for accuracy and experience.

You’ll also drive automation and process improvements across ERP and procurement systems, working cross-functionally to increase efficiency and reduce manual work.

You should be comfortable operating in ambiguity, managing high-volume workflows, and driving continuous improvement with a strong sense of ownership.

What we’re looking for:

We’re looking for a strong AP operator who can own and scale Direct Procurement AP while maintaining a high bar for accuracy and control.

• Proven experience supporting direct spend or supply chain in high-growth environments—you’re comfortable handling volume while building for scale.

• Hands-on expertise in AP operations and systems, including ERP and procurement tools, with the willingness to dive into queue work, resolve mismatches, support accruals, and close activities.

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with experience supporting cross-functional partners and handling executive or VIP escalations.

• A process and controls mindset, with experience improving workflows, driving automation, and.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Own end-to-end AP operations across Direct Procurement: intake, 2/3-way match, exception handling, disbursements, supplier inquiries, and close activities.

• Act as the primary escalation point, partnering with Accounting and cross-functional teams to resolve complex exceptions, payment holds, and close blockers.

• Build and scale Direct AP foundations by defining receiving and asset management processes required for 3-way match.

• Improve performance by driving cycle time, first-pass yield, and on-time payment, while reducing root causes of top exceptions.

• Maintain strong controls and compliance, including SOX-aligned approvals, audit readiness, and segregation of duties.

• Drive automation and system improvements across ERP and AP workflows (e.g., OCR, approvals, integrations) to reduce manual work and improve data quality.

• Leverage AI-first approaches to AP operations—identifying opportunities to deploy automation, agents, and intelligent workflows to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, and scale efficiently.

• Enhance supplier and stakeholder experience by resolving escalations, enabling self-service, and partnering on operational improvements.

• Own reporting and visibility across AP metrics, including aging, cycle time, exceptions, payment forecasts, and risk.

• Partner with BPO teams to manage capacity and performance through clear SLAs, KPIs, and continuous improvement.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Bring deep AP expertise and enjoy owning operations end-to-end, from invoice intake through close.

• Stay close to the work—comfortable jumping into queue, resolving exceptions, and unblocking payments when needed.

• Operate effectively in high-growth environments, balancing immediate execution with building scalable processes.

• Think in systems and automation, with experience improving workflows across ERP/AP tools and curiosity for AI-driven solutions.

• Exercise strong judgment with a controls mindset, and partner effectively across Accounting, Procurement, and Supply Chain.

• Take ownership and move with urgency, influencing outcomes even without direct authority.

• Have hands-on experience with tools like Oracle Fusion, Zip, Navan, VNDLY, Brightflag, Jira, or similar enterprise platforms—especially in integrated environments.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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