OpenAI has appointed Jill Hazelbaker, Uber’s President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, as its Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, “leading the company’s global communications and corporate positioning”, according to OpenAI’s announcement on 3 November. Uber’s 2026 proxy statement reports her total 2025 compensation as $10,992,968.
The same proxy shows Uber paid her 193.55% of her 2025 bonus target, against 129.03% for each of its four other named executive officers, by our comparison of its incentive table. She was the only one of the five given a 150% individual modifier.
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The key insight:Uber’s 2026 proxy shows it paid Hazelbaker 193.55% of her 2025 bonus target, against 129.03% for each of its four other named executive officers, by our comparison; it ties her 150% individual modifier to insurance-reform work it credits with hundreds of millions of dollars in annualized savings.
OpenAI says Hazelbaker “will work closely with leaders across OpenAI to deepen public understanding of AI and strengthen trust in its mission”. It says that at Uber she oversaw “the company’s global communications, marketing, public policy, safety, and people teams”.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, is quoted saying: “As AI becomes part of more people’s lives, how we communicate, engage, and earn public trust has never been more important”. Hazelbaker is quoted saying: “The stakes are enormous, the possibilities are extraordinary, and the work of building public trust has never been more consequential”.
OpenAI also lists her earlier roles: communications and public policy at Snap, senior leadership roles at Google, and National Communications Director and Chief Spokesperson for Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. The announcement gives no start date and no pay terms.
Uber’s FY25 annual cash incentive payouts as a percentage of target for its five named executive officers. Source: Uber 2026 proxy statement (DEF 14A), filed 23 March 2026. Company performance was 129.03% for all five; Hazelbaker’s individual modifier was 150%, the others’ 100%.
What Was Posted on X
OpenAI is hiring Uber President Jill Hazelbaker as its new chief corporate affairs officer.
She’ll oversee global communications and brandstrategy, filling a role vacant since the start of 2026.
Hazelbaker, a veteran of Google & Snap, will leave Uber on Nov. 30
Wall St Engine posted on 3 November at 19:36 UTC that OpenAI is hiring Uber President Jill Hazelbaker as its new chief corporate affairs officer. The post says she will oversee global communications and brandstrategy, filling a role vacant since the start of 2026, and will leave Uber on Nov. 30.
What Uber’s Filings Say
Uber’s 8-K of 11 May 2026 says Hazelbaker, then Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, Communications & Public Policy, would “assume a new role of President & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, effective immediately”. The proxy, filed on 23 March before that change, lists her as Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, Public Affairs.
The proxy says the compensation committee used the 150% individual modifier for “her extraordinary work on our insurance reform strategy”. It credits that strategy with “hundreds of millions of dollars in annualized savings”, including the passage of SB 371 in California and two bills in Georgia.
In the Summary Compensation Table, her 2025 total of $10,992,968 is made up of $800,000 in salary, $8,622,981 in stock awards, a $1,548,400 cash incentive and $21,588 in other compensation. Her 2024 total was $12,013,804.
The Vacancy
Wall St Engine said in a post on X at 19:36 UTC that she will “oversee global communications and brandstrategy, filling a role vacant since the start of 2026”, and that she will leave Uber on Nov. 30. OpenAI’s announcement does not give either detail.
Fortune reported on 23 September, citing a source, that Hazelbaker had turned down OpenAI’s top communications job in the spring, and that chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane had been overseeing the team. Fortune said Hannah Wong had announced her departure in a January 2026 LinkedIn post. Axios and The Information reported the move earlier on Tuesday.
As we read Uber’s proxy, the outlier in her pay was policy work: the company performance score was the same 129.03% for all five executives, and only her individual modifier differed.
As we read OpenAI’s announcement, the role is framed around public trust: both quotes it carries, from Brockman and from Hazelbaker, use the phrase “public trust”.
As we read the timing, the appointment came a day after OpenAI announced Dan Driscoll as Senior Counselor for National Security Modernization.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI co-founder and president, in OpenAI’s announcement, 3 November
“how we communicate, engage, and earn public trust has never been more important”
Three Implications
FOR READERS TRACKING OPENAI The role covers global communications and corporate positioning, OpenAI says; it has not disclosed her pay or start date.
FOR READERS TRACKING UBER Uber’s 8-K of 11 May made her President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer; Wall St Engine says she leaves on Nov. 30.
FOR READERS TRACKING POLICY Uber’s proxy links her 2025 rating to California’s SB 371 and two Georgia bills on insurance and damages.
The framework puts it this way: “It describes the intersection of three powerful forces: geopolitics, cultural transformation, and economic change.”
As we read it, OpenAI’s two appointments this week map onto the first two of those forces: a national security counselor on Monday and, on Tuesday, a communications chief whose role OpenAI frames around public trust. The framework does not discuss these hires.
OpenAI has not disclosed Hazelbaker’s pay or start date. The leaving date of 30 November and the description of the role as vacant since the start of 2026 come from Wall St Engine’s post and are not in OpenAI’s announcement. Fortune’s account of the spring offer rests on one unnamed source. The stock-award figures are the proxy’s grant-date values, not cash received.
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OpenAI’s new head of communications and corporate positioning comes from Uber, whose proxy credits her insurance-reform work with hundreds of millions of dollars in annualized savings and paid her 193.55% of her 2025 bonus target, the highest rate of its five named executives.
A note on sourcing. The appointment, role description and quotes come from OpenAI’s 3 November announcement. Pay figures, the individual modifier and the insurance-reform passage come from Uber’s 2026 proxy statement; her title change comes from Uber’s 11 May 2026 8-K. The comparison of bonus payouts across Uber’s five named executive officers is ours. The leaving date and the vacancy description are from a Wall St Engine post on X; the spring offer is from Fortune’s reporting, citing one source.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
