Srinivas Narayanan, the CTO of OpenAI's B2B applications unit, has announced his departure. In a LinkedIn post on April 19, he said he wants to spend time with his aging parents in India before deciding on his next step, and that the handoff is expected to be completed next week. His exit came after two other senior leaders left OpenAI earlier in the same week, making him the third executive to depart within three days.
Role covered ChatGPT Enterprise and developer APIs
Narayanan was not the company-wide CTO of OpenAI. His title was CTO of B2B Applications, a role tied to ChatGPT Enterprise, the developer API ecosystem, and backend infrastructure serving enterprise customers. That distinction matters because some outside reports described him simply as “OpenAI CTO,” which does not match the structure described in the source material. OpenAI does not currently have a single unified CTO title across the company, with technical leadership divided across business lines.
Public background information in the source says Narayanan studied computer science at IIT Madras and later earned a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He joined OpenAI in April 2023 as VP of Engineering and later moved up to lead the B2B applications unit, placing him close to one of OpenAI's main commercial engines.
Three departures across three core fronts
The resignation landed during a week of unusually heavy leadership turnover at OpenAI. On April 17, Sora core researcher Bill Peebles left. The same day, former chief product officer Kevin Weil also exited, and the OpenAI for Science unit he had briefly overseen was disbanded. Two days later, Narayanan announced his departure, leaving leadership gaps across consumer generative media, science-focused AI efforts, and enterprise applications and APIs.
These were not leaders from a single team. Peebles was tied to Sora, Weil to OpenAI for Science, and Narayanan to the company's enterprise applications stack. Taken together, the departures touched multiple strategic tracks at once and drew attention because of how concentrated the timing was.
Family reason given, succession still unclear
Narayanan said his decision was driven by family considerations and that he wants time with his parents before making another career move. In his public explanation, there was no direct criticism of OpenAI's management or business direction.
Still, the timing has drawn notice. OpenAI is in a period of commercial pressure, while competition for enterprise AI customers remains intense, with Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft Copilot all pushing their own offerings. A leadership change in the unit responsible for enterprise applications and technical delivery leaves an immediate succession question. OpenAI has not named a replacement.