Microsoft’s Dee Templeton Has Joined the OpenAI Board of Directors

Bloomberg reports that Microsoft vice president Dee Templeton has joined the OpenAI board of directors as a non-voting observer. The move comes a little over a month after the OpenAI drama in which Sam Altman was ousted and then reinstated as CEO.

Altman revealed in late November after his reinstatement that Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor, would get a non-voting seat on the board, but neither company revealed who that person would be. Templeton is a 25-year Microsoft veteran who currently oversees technology research partnerships and operations and acts as an advisor to CTO Kevin Scott, who orchestrated the Microsoft/OpenAI partnership.

“I lead a talented team that develops and nurtures some of Microsoft’s most significant technical partnerships, including the cross-functional team accountable for the progress of our joint work with OpenAI,” Templeton notes in her LinkedIn profile. “I began my career at Microsoft 25 years ago as the first female technical employee at Microsoft New Zealand, and I’ve since had the opportunity to contribute in engineering and product roles across numerous divisions and technologies.”

Templeton joins former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former U.S. Treasury secretary Larry Summers, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo in the OpenAI boardroom, but Altman indicated in November that he planned to “significantly enlarge” the board “fairly quickly.” D’Angelo is the only member of the former OpenAI board to survive the drama, as the rest of the original board was dismissed or left of their own accord when Altman returned.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and UK Competition and Markets Authority are both investigating whether Microsoft’s unique partnership with OpenAI is anticompetitive and violates antitrust laws.