Open AI poaches Slack CEO as its chief revenue officer

• OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer comes from a two-year stint as Slack CEO
• Denise Dresser played an important role in Slack's AI integration strategy
• OpenAI is focusing on generating more profit as a business

Slack CEO Denise Dresser will be leaving Slack to join OpenAI as the ChatGPT-maker's Chief Revenue Officer, with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff notifying company workers earlier this week of the CEO's departure.

Dresser will report to OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap in her new role, overseeing enterprise affairs and managing the company's global revenue strategy, beginning December 2025.

OpenAI credited Dresser for her understanding of large businesses, customers and product scaling.

Slack CEO moves over to OpenAI

OpenAI didn't shy away from mentioning Dresser's previous role at Slack, where she "helped redefine how millions of people use AI to work more efficiently and stay better connected."

With companies shifting from experimentation to implementation, OpenAI sees this as a good time to hire an experienced C-suite exec to oversee revenue.

"We’re on a path to put AI tools into the hands of millions of workers, across every industry. Denise has led that kind of shift before, and her experience will help us make AI useful, reliable, and accessible for businesses everywhere," OpenAI Applications CEO Fidji Simo wrote.

Dresser became Slack's CEO in 2023 after a history of other high-ranking roles within the Salesforce portfolio, and played an important role in the company's AI integration strategy.

“I’ve spent my career helping scale category-defining platforms, and I’m looking forward to bringing that experience to OpenAI as it enters its next phase of enterprise transformation," she wrote.

This comes as OpenAI continues to expand, with an estimated one million business customers on its books and 800 million weekly ChatGPT users.

The appointment off a Chief Revenue Officer is also a timely one, because OpenAI recently underwent a for-profit restructuring, though signs that the company may go fully public are few and far between at this stage.

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