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Bayo Ogunlesi, chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners, listens to a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump during a strategic and policy discussion with CEOs at the State Department Library in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 11, 2017 in Washington, DC.
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OpenAI said on Tuesday that Adebayo Ogunlesi, the company’s senior managing director BlackRockis joining the startup’s board of directors, the latest announcement of the company’s transition to a commercial structure.
Ogunlesi is the founding partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investment firm that was purchased BlackRock last year for $12 billion. Before helping to found GIP in 2006, Ogunlesi spent 23 years at Credit Suisse.
“The rapid progress and development of artificial intelligence offers a unique opportunity to build a better future,” Ogunlesi said in an OpenAI announcement on Tuesday. “Within this, thoughtful strategies and infrastructure investments will be key to unlocking the full potential of artificial intelligence and harnessing its benefits responsibly. I am very excited to contribute to this effort and look forward to being a part of the OpenAI board.”
For OpenAI, Ogunlesi’s addition to the board marks another step in its dramatic transformation into a for-profit company. The board of directors has been almost completely revamped since late 2023, when CEO Sam Altman was suddenly expelled before being quickly recovered.
Ex Salesforce co-CEO Brett Taylor, who was Twitter’s chairman before he bought it Elon Muskbecame chairman of OpenAI after Altman’s ordeal in November 2023. Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary, joined at the same time. Last year the board added several new faces including Instacart CEO Fiji Sima and Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellman, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, now known as the Gates Foundation.
OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit in 2015, said in late December that it would to create public benefit corporation to oversee its commercial operations, removing some of its nonprofit restrictions and allowing it to function more like a high-growth startup.
Last year, OpenAI was rated at 157 billion dollars as it continued to roll out updated large language models and new tools after the start of the generative artificial intelligence boom in late 2022.
The company said that by becoming a Delaware PBC “with common stock,” it can pursue commercial activities by separately hiring staff for its nonprofit arm and allowing that arm to pursue its health, education and science philanthropy, OpenAI. said in December.
Musk, one of the co-founders of OpenAI sue to try to stop OpenAI from becoming a full-fledged commercial business.
Ogunlesi’s other board positions include BlackRock, Topgolf Callaway Brands, Kosmos Energy Holdings and Terminal Investment Ltd.
— CNBC’s Hayden Field contributed to this report.
