OpenAI has hired Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its new CRO, marking one of the company’s most significant executive additions as it doubles down on enterprise growth.
Dresser stepped into the CEO role at Slack in 2023 after more than 12 years at Salesforce.
She will now take the reins of OpenAI’s global revenue strategy.
Her remit spans enterprise expansion, customer success, and the commercialisation of OpenAI’s rapidly growing product ecosystem.
That ecosystem now reaches more than one million business customers and sees 800 million weekly users of ChatGPT.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the OpenAI team as Chief Revenue Officer,” Dresser said in a LinkedIn post.
“OpenAI has built the world’s leading AI platform—one that’s already empowering companies to move faster, solve meaningful problems, and drive stronger business outcomes.
“I’m excited to help accelerate enterprise adoption, deepen strategic partnerships, and expand AI’s impact globally.”
Her arrival comes at an important moment for OpenAI.
The company has completed its for-profit restructuring and is pursuing an aggressive growth plan.
It has also committed more than $1.4 trillion to long-term infrastructure.
With competition intensifying from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Anthropic, the race to become the default AI platform for enterprise productivity is heating up fast.
A Proven Enterprise Operator
During her time at Slack, Dresser became known for pushing AI deeper into enterprise communication.
Under her leadership, Slack released several widely discussed AI features. These included intelligent thread summaries, channel recaps, automated jargon translation, and an upgraded Slackbot.
Each tool helped transform Slack from a messaging platform into a broader workplace intelligence hub.
“I’ve spent my career helping scale category-defining platforms,” Dresser said.
“I’m looking forward to bringing that experience to OpenAI as it enters its next phase of enterprise transformation.”
Her track record fits closely with OpenAI’s ambitions.
The company has evolved far beyond a consumer AI phenomenon to a foundational enterprise technology provider.
ChatGPT’s adoption across knowledge work, combined with new tools for search, productivity, and workflow integration, places OpenAI firmly inside a competitive software space long dominated by Microsoft, Google Workspace, Salesforce, and other cloud giants.
Enterprise AI Is Entering Its Scale Era
OpenAI’s enterprise footprint has grown at a pace few analysts expected.
The company expects to surpass $20 billion in annualised revenue this year, and is aiming to scale toward hundreds of billions by 2030.
To meet those goals, it must quickly mature into a commercial organisation capable of handling large, complex, global enterprise deals.
This is where Dresser becomes crucial.
She brings experience from Salesforce, which many consider the gold standard in enterprise sales execution.
She also offers insight from leading Slack, a platform used daily by millions of employees. Together, these experiences create a unique blend of operational discipline, large-scale execution, and product-led growth.
OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, highlighted this alignment. “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.”
For OpenAI, this hire is not simply an operational change. It is a strategic signal that the company aims to become an enterprise-first organisation, not just a research powerhouse.
Slack’s Transition and the Wider Industry
As Dresser departs, Salesforce chief product officer Rob Seaman will step in as interim CEO of Slack.
The transition comes at a challenging time for the platform. Slack is fighting to keep its position in an increasingly AI-heavy collaboration market.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is weaving AI deeply into Teams and Google is doing the same across Workspace.
As a result, Slack’s identity is evolving quickly.
Dresser’s move reflects a broader talent shift across the industry.
Many enterprise leaders are moving toward AI-first companies, where innovation moves faster and market expectations are rising sharply.
Organisations are racing to align with vendors that can offer both foundational AI models and enterprise-ready tools.
OpenAI’s transformation into a major enterprise platform is just beginning.
Hiring Dresser shows the company’s intent to compete at the highest levels of enterprise technology. Her experience scaling Slack into a global workplace platform, combined with her background at Salesforce, could make her one of the most impactful hires OpenAI has made.
