OpenAI said on 3 November 2026 that Jill Hazelbaker is joining as its Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, moving over from Uber after a decade there. In the role she will work with OpenAI's leaders on public engagement, communications and building trust in AI, and it brings the company's worldwide communications together with its corporate positioning, so the same executive now owns both how OpenAI speaks and how it presents itself.
“AI represents the most profound technological shift of our lifetime. The stakes are enormous, the possibilities are extraordinary, and the work of building public trust has never been more consequential.”
Jill Hazelbaker, incoming OpenAI Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, in the announcement · storyboard18.com ↗
The news came from co-founder and president Greg Brockman, who wrote that trust, communication and engagement matter more as AI enters more of people's lives, and that Hazelbaker brings judgment and experience at scale. Sam Altman was named among the colleagues she is looking forward to working with. OpenAI also credited her with helping turn Uber from a startup into a global platform, a record it put forward as the reason for the choice.
At Uber her latest title was President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, with communications, marketing, public policy, safety and people teams reporting up to her. The two outlets that covered the move list those areas alike, but Uber's own biography of her adds HR, recruiting and real estate, so the exact width of her remit depends on which account is used. Before Uber she led communications and public policy at Snap, and earlier she worked at Google on global corporate communications, EMEA communications and EU government relations.
Her career began in US politics. She served as National Communications Director and chief spokesperson on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, then as press secretary to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his 2009 re-election. OpenAI describes her as having spent nearly two decades advising technology companies and political leaders, a span that moves from campaign trails and city hall to the communications desks of three of the best-known names in tech.
About Jill Hazelbaker
Jill Hazelbaker is a communications executive and political campaign spokesperson, born in 1981 in Salem, Oregon, who studied political science at the University of Oregon. Until this move she was President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Uber, and she sits on the board of trustees of the McCain Institute and the board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Her path to technology ran through campaigns. In 2008 she was National Communications Director and chief spokesperson for John McCain's presidential campaign. In 2009 she was press secretary to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his re-election, then spent about four years at Google, ending as head of corporate communications, before leading communications and public policy at Snap. Fortune and Ad Age both named her to their 40 Under 40 lists in 2020.
For her part, Hazelbaker framed the job around public trust, calling the coming work consequential for a technology whose stakes she described as enormous. Neither outlet gave a start date for the move, and nothing in their reports says when she is due to take up the post.
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