Head of SaaS Enablement & Governance

OpenAI•San Francisco, CA

5d•Onsite

About The Position

SaaS Enablement & Governance (SEG) sits within IT and owns the end to end SaaS and software lifecycle across the company, with a clear mandate to deliver strong governance without creating friction for the business. The team partners closely with Security, GRC, Procurement, Finance, Legal, and Engineering to ensure software is selected, approved, provisioned, and operated with clear standards for security, compliance, cost discipline, and operational clarity. We focus on portfolio optimization and standardization. We build paved paths for approved tools and enable easy discovery and reuse so teams can onboard quickly without defaulting to net new applications. The team serves as a governance center of excellence, defining standards and controls, governing integrations end to end, embedding security and compliance gates by design, and monitoring for use case drift so tools remain correctly configured, appropriately used, and centrally administered over time. The goal is a curated, well governed SaaS ecosystem that scales with the company. We are seeking a Head of SEG to build and scale the company’s SaaS operating model. You will set strategy and execution across portfolio optimization, intake and approval, onboarding, enablement, and lifecycle governance, with clear ownership from adoption through decommissioning. You will design a reuse first model that makes the right path the easiest path. This includes building clear paved paths, capability to solution mapping, and streamlined intake workflows that help teams move quickly while adhering to governance standards. At the same time, you will establish strong controls including centralized administration, SSO enforcement, integration governance, and ongoing monitoring. You will create mechanisms to support healthy use case growth and expansion, while identifying and correcting unintended use or configuration drift that introduces risk without proper oversight. This includes building scalable workflows, telemetry, and lifecycle controls that keep systems secure, compliant, and audit ready as the company grows. This role is ideal for a senior leader who combines SaaS operations depth with strong governance judgment and a bias toward enablement in fast moving environments. This role is based in our San Francisco HQ and requires in-office presence.

Requirements

Have 10 or more years of experience leading enterprise SaaS governance, portfolio management, or software lifecycle operations at scale
Have built governance operating models that measurably improve security posture, audit readiness, and cost discipline without slowing teams down
Can influence senior cross functional partners to make high judgment tradeoffs across speed, risk, and spend without direct authority

Nice To Haves

Experience leading enterprise SaaS governance and portfolio strategy in high growth or regulated environments
Demonstrated impact reducing SaaS spend and security exposure through portfolio leverage and renewal discipline
Experience building intake and approval systems that encode policy and increase enterprise transparency

Responsibilities

Set direction and establish strong foundations
Own the enterprise SaaS governance mandate as the company scales in size, regulatory exposure, and architectural complexity
Define the enterprise SaaS portfolio strategy to drive disciplined growth, reuse, and risk reduction
Establish clear standards for data handling, access control, and lifecycle ownership across the SaaS ecosystem
Build, operate, and scale reliably
Bring operating discipline to SaaS lifecycle management, including intake, expansion, renewals, and decommissioning
Establish trusted visibility into SaaS portfolio composition, TCO, ownership, and risk posture
Ensure governance maturity aligns with audit, regulatory, and security expectations
Automate for leverage and safety
Replace manual, exception driven governance with scalable, policy encoded operating mechanisms
Ensure governance standards remain enforced as adoption scales and use cases expand
Deliver executive level transparency into portfolio risk, utilization, and cost trends
Enable reuse at scale
Ensure approved platforms are adopted quickly and consistently
Reduce net new tool proliferation through strong enablement and clear portfolio standards
Support controlled use case expansion without introducing unmanaged risk
Partner and lead through influence
Align Security, Finance, Legal, Engineering, and Procurement around a single SaaS governance model
Navigate tradeoffs between speed, cost, and risk with sound judgment
Act as the accountable leader for enterprise SaaS governance outcomes with material financial and security impact