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Timing is everything, and as the C-suite found in September, that matters for coming or going.
Here’s who’s in and out for the month.
Mira Murati resigns from OpenAI
After six and a half years, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati made the sudden announcement that she would be leaving the company. In a September 25 message to staff that she also shared to her X account, Murati said that she was leaving OpenAI to do her “own exploration.”
“There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right,” Murati wrote.
It marks the end of an era. After working as an engineer with electric car company Tesla, Murati joined OpenAI in 2018, helping to transform it into the behemoth it is today. In a statement posted to X, CEO Sam Altman thanked Murati for her work.
“I feel tremendous gratitude towards her for what she has helped us build and accomplish, but I most of all feel personal gratitude towards her for the support and love during all the hard times,” Altman said. “I am excited for what she’ll do next.”
Nishant Bhajaria is Privado’s new head of privacy engineering
VPN service provider Privado welcomed Nishant Bhajaria as its new head of privacy engineering on September 23. Bhajaria, whose experience includes stints at Facebook, Uber Nike, and Netflix, said in a blog post at Privado that he was excited to build the company’s new Privacy Engineering Center of Excellence and “help leaders understand their risks, shape their mitigation strategies, messaging, and metrics.”
“We will offer a safe space to companies to ask questions and build products and processes that are right for them, without the false starts of building or buying the wrong tool,” Bhajaria wrote.
University of Oklahoma welcomes new CIO Nishanth Rodrigues
Nishanth Rodrigues assumed his duties as CIO for the University of Oklahoma September 30 after officially being hired earlier in the month. Rodrigues has over nine years of experience working in the university system at the Universities of Michigan and Mississippi for around two years and seven years respectively. Prior to working in the education sector, his career was mostly focused on tech in the healthcare industry.
Jed Maczuba is the new CTO at InvoiceCloud
Bill payment digitization platform InvoiceCloud has a new CTO—Jed Maczuba, a two-decade vet in the fintech space. Maczuba’s hiring was announced in a press release September 17; the company said the new executive will lead efforts to develop new products and services.
“I look forward to leveraging my experience to drive the development of innovative solutions that will not only meet but exceed our customers’ evolving needs,” Maczuba said in a statement accompanying the hiring announcement.
Maczuba previously worked for Advisor360 and Mellon as CTO; he moved to the financial services sector in 2010 after 15 years at IBM in various IT roles.