Hajra Naz
OpenAI is bringing on Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its new chief revenue officer, a major hire first reported by Wired and later confirmed in an official OpenAI blog post. The move signals OpenAI’s continued push to strengthen its enterprise business as competition in AI intensifies.
Dresser steps into the role after more than 14 years at Salesforce, Slack’s parent company, where she played a key role in scaling Slack’s enterprise adoption and helped oversee the rollout of several AI-powered productivity features. Her experience selling software to large organizations is expected to play a central role as OpenAI transitions from a research-first company into a business with sustainable, long-term commercial revenue.
At OpenAI, Dresser will oversee enterprise revenue strategy, global sales, and customer success, with a mandate to expand the company’s footprint across Fortune 500 clients, government contracts, and high-growth startups. The hiring comes at a pivotal moment: OpenAI is facing pressure to generate predictable revenue as its operating costs continue to climb, driven by massive compute, model training expenses, and aggressive infrastructure expansion.
Read More: Claude Code is coming to Slack, and it could change your workflow overnight
“We’re focused on getting AI tools into the hands of millions of workers across every industry,” said Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications. “Denise has led that kind of transformation before, and her experience will help us make AI useful, reliable, and accessible for businesses everywhere.”
Simo herself joined OpenAI earlier this year after serving as CEO of Instacart, which has become one of OpenAI’s most prominent enterprise partners. Both leaders are expected to shape OpenAI’s next phase of growth, which includes deepening integration of ChatGPT, ChatGPT Enterprise, and upcoming agentic AI tools into workplace software.
Dresser’s appointment also highlights the talent shifts happening across the tech industry as AI becomes the center of gravity for executive leadership. Over the last year, OpenAI has recruited leaders from Meta, Google, Amazon, and major enterprise SaaS companies in an effort to accelerate monetization.
Read More: OpenAI Rolls Out GPT-5.1 | A More Human, Smarter, and Faster ChatGPT
Meanwhile, Wired reports that Rob Seaman, Slack’s chief product officer, will serve as Slack’s interim CEO as the company undergoes its own reorganization. Slack continues to invest heavily in its AI roadmap, including generative AI assistants, workflow tools, and integrations designed for large enterprises.
Dresser’s move is widely viewed as a sign that OpenAI is prioritizing enterprise stability, revenue diversification, and long-term commercial maturity as it races against rivals like Google, Anthropic, Meta, and Microsoft to dominate the next generation of AI-driven workplace tools.
