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Who is Fidji Simo, the manager joining OpenAI to lead the global deployment of AI

Former CEO of Instacart and former Facebook executive, he will be in charge of leading the artificial intelligence applications developed by the organisation, taking them to an international scale

by Angelica Migliorisi

14 May 2025

3' min read

Key points

International profile
The relaunch of Instacart and the vocation for AI
OpenAI between ambitions and turbulence
A new phase for OpenAI

3' min read

From the helm of Instacart to the top management of OpenAI, Fidji Simo is poised to set a new direction in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race. In a surprise announcement, the organisation's CEO Sam Altman confirmed the appointment of the French manager as the new Chief Executive of Applications.

A strategic assignment that aims to strengthen the operational structure of the company that revolutionised the technology landscape with ChatGPT, bringing AI out of the labs and (even more) into people's daily lives, from the economy to healthcare and public services.

Simo, formerly a member of the board of directors of OpenAI, will leave her position as CEO of Instacart - the popular US grocery delivery platform - in the coming months to fully assume her new role. She will be responsible for coordinating the sales, marketing, finance and AI application deployment teams. He will report directly to Altman, who will remain head of the organisation but will focus more on research, computing and systems security.

"Each of these areas could be a business in itself. Bringing exceptional leaders on board is critical to managing this scale,' the CEO wrote in a post on the company's official blog.

Chi è Sam Altman

An international profile

Born in 1985 in Sète, southern France, to a family of fishermen, Fidji Simo is the first in her family to have attended university. Thanks to a scholarship, she studied at the HEC in Paris, where she started her international journey with an internship in the United States at eBay. It was there that his passion for technology was born.

After a few years in e-commerce, he joined Facebook, where his career took off: he became head of the main app in 2019, having contributed to the launch of key products such as Facebook Live and Facebook Watch.

During her time at Meta, she is followed by Sheryl Sandberg, one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, best known for being the Chief Operating Officer of Mark Zuckerberg's company from 2008 to 2022.

Fidji plays a central role in the rethinking of the platform after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which in 2018 revealed how millions of users' personal data had been collected and used without consent to influence electoral processes, forcing Facebook to radically review its policies on privacy, transparency and security. In 2021, however, the manager decided to return to her roots in the food world and took over as head of Instacart.

The relaunch of Instacart and the vocation for AI

Arriving at a critical juncture, Fidji managed to keep Instacart profitable even after the pandemic, leading an Initial Public Offering (IPO, the process by which a private company goes public, listing on the stock exchange for the first time) of $11 billion in 2023 andmaking strategic deals with partners such as Uber. In the last quarter, the company forecast better-than-expected results, a sign that the transition to the new management structure will go smoothly.

In an internal letter, Simo described the decision to leave Instacart as 'painful', but explained that she could not give up the chance to contribute to the development of a technology 'capable of curing diseases and improving people's lives'. Health, especially women's health, is a subject close to her heart:she has publicly recounted her battle with endometriosis and founded Metrodora, a research centre dedicated to neuroimmune disorders.

OpenAI between ambition and turbulence

The entry of a profile like his into OpenAI at this very moment is no coincidence. Altman has just backtracked on a restructuring proposal that would have reduced the non-profit board's influence. After opposition from Elon Musk - co-founder and now in litigation with the company - and the attention of the California and Delaware prosecutors,the company decided to keep the original structure.

Not only that. The wave of excellent exits from the organisation continues. After the exit of Mira Murati, former Chief Technology Officer and the mastermind behind ChatGPT, John Schulman, Barret Zoph, Bob McGrew and Alec Radford also left. That is, all the protagonists of the major innovations of recent years. A haemorrhage of talent that makes it all the more crucial to strengthen the operational area.

A New Phase for OpenAI

With an estimated value of between USD 300 billion and USD 340 billion and a fundraising of USD 40 billion led by SoftBank, OpenAI is today one of the most important private companies in the world.

Betting on Simo means taking concrete action to strengthen governance and scalability at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming from a technology experiment to a critical infrastructure for society. She says: "Joining OpenAI at this time is an extraordinary privilege and responsibility. And above all: 'I am deeply committed to orienting these technologies towards the common good. That common good that led to the birth of the non-profit now ten years ago.