OpenAI has hired former Shopify executive Glenn Worthington as head of product and customer support.
Mr. Worthington previously served as Vice President of Global Support at Shopify, where he led a team of thousands of employees to troubleshoot issues for the Canadian e-commerce company's millions of merchants. . He is the latest in a series of leaders from Shopify's support organization to leave.
Under Worthington's leadership, Shopify has embarked on a plan to put AI at the center of how it works with merchants. This was intended to allow merchants to get answers to simple questions without involving Shopify employees unless necessary. Shopify's work with AI incorporates large-scale language models, including those developed by OpenAI.
Worthington also previously served as chief of staff to Shopify's former chief operating officer, Toby Shannan.
At OpenAI, you will lead a user operations organization that works with sales, product, and engineering to deliver great experiences for businesses using OpenAI's products. OpenAI hires generalists and engineers to work on its teams.
Representatives for OpenAI and Shopify had not commented at the time of publication.
Worthington posted about his new job on LinkedIn.
“I couldn't be more motivated by the opportunity to be part of a cause so important to the world. Working with some of the brightest minds building a support system for the most creative users on the planet. Thank you for the opportunity to work together,” he wrote. “The path forward is not just about addressing today's challenges, but also about rethinking what support can look like in the age of AI.”
Shopify's support organization has seen some leadership changes in recent months.
Jen Bebb, previously Shopify's director of global merchant and product support, also left the company in March following Worthington's departure. She then joined WordPress VIP as Vice President of Global Support. Clovis Cuqui, who previously led support as Shopify's vice president of merchant acceleration, announced his resignation in October.
While at Shopify, Worthington helped lead a project called “Code Yellow” aimed at improving customer service levels that had “unacceptably degraded,” according to internal documents.
Shopify doesn't have any open positions listed in Customer Support.
Worthington isn't the only Shopify leader to join OpenAI in recent months. Miqdad Jaffer, who led his company-wide AI efforts as Product Director at Shopify, joined OpenAI's product staff in March.
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