OpenAI is one of the biggest names in the AI race today, but the people behind the company do more than build AI models. Nigerians working at OpenAI are part of teams across engineering, product, data, security, sales, policy and research, with people based in different parts of the world.
Nigerians are part of many of these teams, and they have taken different paths to get there. Some of the Nigerians working at OpenAI came from companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Stripe and Figma. Others came through research, policy and different parts of the tech industry.
Here are 12 Nigerians working at OpenAI and the career paths that brought them there.
What do these Nigerians do at OpenAI?
The Nigerians featured in this article work across several parts of OpenAI, from technical infrastructure to AI products, data science, cybersecurity, enterprise adoption, global policy and research.
1. Anna Makanju
Anna Makanju is one of the Nigerians working at OpenAI, where she has worked across policy and global impact.
She served as OpenAI’s Vice President of Global Impact and now Head of AI for Civil Society and Philanthropy at the OpenAI Foundation. Before that, she served as OpenAI’s Vice President of Global Affairs, working with governments and world leaders on AI.
Makanju was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, to a Ukrainian mother and Nigerian father. She spent parts of her childhood in Lagos, Germany, Arizona and Kuwait before settling in Texas. She studied linguistics and French at Western Washington University, entered university at 16, and later earned her law degree from Stanford.
Before OpenAI, she worked at international courts and spent eight years in the Obama-Biden administration, including roles at the White House, National Security Council, Department of Defense and US Mission to the UN. She later worked in technology policy at Facebook before joining OpenAI. In April 2026, she moved to the OpenAI Foundation, where she now works on helping nonprofits and civil society groups use AI.
2. Uche David
Uche David moved from Apple to OpenAI in January 2026, joining the company as a member of technical staff. He had spent more than four years at Apple, working as a firmware and embedded software engineer. Before that, he studied electrical and electronics engineering in Russia and later earned a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering in the US
David started his career working on firmware and other low-level systems. He also worked with Microsoft’s Xbox team before joining Apple, where he worked on chip systems, power control and camera software.
3. Folley Ogundele
Folley Ogundele joined OpenAI in February 2026 after years of helping big technology and finance companies grow. He is now Head of Enterprise for EMEA, where he works with large businesses across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and helps them bring OpenAI’s tools into their work.
Before OpenAI, Ogundele worked at Stripe, Wise, American Express and IBM and later became Chief Revenue Officer at Finmid. At Stripe, he helped grow the company across Europe, while at Wise he worked with banks and other large businesses. He studied business management at the University of Surrey and earned an MBA from Imperial College London.
4. Ogbeide Derrick Oigiagbe
Oigiagbe works on product security at OpenAI, where he helps keep its products and users safe. Before joining OpenAI, he was Head of Product Security at Netflix Games and also worked at Amazon Web Services, focusing on cloud security.
Oigiagbe lived and grew up in Lagos before moving to the US to further his studies. He later graduated from Carnegie Mellon University. At OpenAI, he works on security features such as Advanced Account Security and Lockdown Mode, bringing his years of security work into the AI space.
5. Ola Okelola
Ola Okelola is a Nigerian software engineer at OpenAI and one of the Nigerians who worked on GPT-4o. His journey in tech started years before the current AI boom. He grew up in Nigeria, went to school in Ibadan and Lagos, and later moved to the US to study systems and computer science at Howard University. While in school, he worked as an intern at Microsoft in 2005 and Google in 2006.
After graduating in 2007, Okelola joined Facebook as a software engineer and spent almost 11 years there. He worked on the systems behind Facebook’s products, including its iOS app. He later joined OpenAI, where he now works on AI systems. OpenAI lists him as one of the contributors to GPT-4o, which can work with text, audio and images.
6. Tonia Osadebe
Tonia Osadebe works on AI safety at OpenAI, where she helps make AI products safer for people and developers. Her work sits between the people building AI models and the people using them. Before OpenAI, she spent time at Google and YouTube, where she worked on technology, product and AI safety.
Osadebe studied engineering at the University of Denver and later went to Duke University. At Google, she worked in different roles before moving into product work at YouTube, where she focused on AI safety and fairness. At OpenAI, she has worked on safety tools that help developers check AI responses and build safer products. She has also worked on security and safety systems for ChatGPT Images.
7. Olabode Anise
Olabode Anise joined OpenAI in April 2026 as a member of technical staff on the Codex team, bringing years of experience in data, software and security. Before OpenAI, he spent more than four years at Figma, where he led the Core Data Science team and worked on data and product testing. He had earlier worked at Google and Duo Security.
At Duo Security, he helped build the company’s data systems and worked on research into online security. At Google, he helped launch a Chrome security feature that grew protection from about 100,000 users to more than 75 million users. At Figma, he led the move of 705 SQL queries to a new data system, cutting their run time by 47%, and helped build the Core Data Science team. He now works on agentic coding at OpenAI, using that experience to help improve AI systems that can write and work with code.
8. Simon Oshikanlu
Simon Oshikanlu joined OpenAI in December 2025 as a software engineer. Before that, he built his career across software, finance and AI. While studying at Harvard University, he interned at Google and JPMorgan Chase before later working at Jane Street and Hudson River Trading.
Oshikanlu also spent time with AI and fintech startups before joining OpenAI. His career has taken him from software and finance into AI, where he now works as a software engineer at OpenAI.
9. Akin Olugbade
Akin Olugbade joined OpenAI in February 2026 as a product staff member, working on the company’s ads and other ways it makes money from its products. He came to the role after working at Statsig, where he built tools for product testing and data. Before that, he spent more than eight years at Microsoft and later worked as a product manager at Meta.
His interest in technology started when he was young in Nigeria. He taught himself to make simple games on a TI-83 calculator using free information he found online. He later moved to the US to study at Duke University. After graduating, he started at Intel in a role that gave him a closer look at computer hardware. He then moved to Microsoft in 2011, followed by Meta in 2019 and Statsig.
10. Femi Alamu
Femi Alamu is one of the Nigerians working at OpenAI.
Femi Alamu joined OpenAI in August 2025 as a member of technical staff. He works as a software engineer, building the systems behind OpenAI’s products. Before OpenAI, he worked at Capital One, Shopify and DoorDash, gaining years of experience in software and large tech systems.
11. Olalekan Olalusi
Olalekan Olalusi has been at OpenAI since 2024, where he works as a Cybersecurity Deviation Management Specialist. His work includes looking into unusual activity and finding out what caused it.
Before OpenAI, he worked at Dell Technologies, where he built experience with large business technology systems. Olalusi studied at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His years at Dell gave him a strong base in enterprise technology before he moved into AI.
12. Kiitan Ayandosu
Kiitan Ayandosu is a young Nigerian AI researcher who joined OpenAI in July 2026 as a member of technical staff. Before that, he had already spent time working with AI at Apple and Snap, while also doing research at Howard University. One of his research projects looked at how well OpenAI’s Whisper speech tool worked compared with Amazon Transcribe and Deepgram.
Ayandosu grew up in Lagos and later moved to the US to study computer science at Howard University, where he graduated with highest honours in December 2025. He also worked with the school’s AI4PC research lab and took part in Google’s Tech Exchange programme.
Last updated: September 21, 2026
