Who is Fidji Simo? OpenAI's top executive for AGI deployment steps down due to health concerns as AI race intensifies

Fidji Simo, chief executive officer (CEO), AGI deployment at OpenAI, who oversaw most of the artificial intelligence (AI) startup's core business, has resigned from her role after a three-month medical leave and will hand over her responsibilities to three other top officials, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Why has Fidji Simo resigned?

Simo, who was hired over a year ago, has been on medical leave since April due to an ongoing neuroimmune condition. According to a post shared on X, she will now switch to being a part-time adviser to the AI startup.

She wrote, "Three months ago, I had to go on medical leave after a severe exacerbation of a chronic illness I've lived with for seven years," and added, "During that time, it became clear that the road to recovery would be much longer and more complex than I had anticipated — and that I needed to focus on it fully."

According to the report, Simo said her product and business responsibilities will be split between OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar and Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon. She added that she will, however, continue to advise on OpenAI's consumer product, ads and health products.

In a post on X, CEO Sam Altman responded to Simo's decision to step down and wrote, "I am really sad about this and very grateful for all Fidji has done for OpenAI, and even grateful for her friendship and who she is as a person. We all wish her the best for a speedy recovery. This sucks."

Simo, who joined OpenAI in August last year, was responsible for the company's efforts to expand its business model in the run-up to a potential initial public offering (IPO).

Who is Fidji Simo?

Simo received her Master of Science in Management degree from HEC Paris. She then obtained another Master's degree in Business/Commerce from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Before joining OpenAI, she had worked as the former chief executive officer of Instacart.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Simo worked as a strategy manager at eBay from 2007 to 2011. In 2011, she joined Facebook as a product marketing-advertising manager for two years, following which she led product management for a year. From 2014 to 2017, Simo served as the Director of Product Management at Facebook and later became Vice President – Video, Games, Monetization between 2017 and 2019.

In 2019, she became a board member at Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group for a year, following which she joined Facebook again as the head of its app.

From 2021 to 2025, Simo served as a board member and chief executive officer of Instacart. During this time, she also held several other positions, including co-founder at the Metrodora Institute and board member at Shopify.

In 2024, Simo became a board member of OpenAI for a year. In 2025, she joined the company as CEO, AGI deployment and also became the co-founder of ChronicleBio.

AI race heats up

In the past year, the AI startup has faced intense competition, especially from rival Anthropic PBC, in areas such as coding agents. The Sam Altman-led company filed for a public listing last month and, in a fundraising round in March, was valued at $852 billion.

On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled a new AI agent designed to give white-collar professionals access to coding capabilities without the high cost typically associated with such tools, Reuters reported. The AI agent called ChatGPT Work will combine a chatbot with its AI coding tool, Codex, to create documents, presentations and websites.

(with agency inputs)