OpenAI’s head of safety systems, Johannes Heidecke, is leaving the company following an internal restructuring that merges its safety and research teams under a single leader, Wired reported on Friday. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen told staff in a memo that safety teams would now report to Mia Glaese, whose title has been expanded to VP of Research and Safety, a newly created role.
Saachi Jain has been named interim head of safety systems while the company searches for Heidecke’s permanent replacement. It is the second time in less than two years that OpenAI has folded its safety organisation into a structure reporting to a research lead.
Heidecke’s tenure
Heidecke joined OpenAI in 2021 as an AI safety analyst and took over the head of safety systems role in 2024, succeeding Lilian Weng. His work covered model alignment, rule-based reward systems, and the company’s preparedness evaluations for potentially dangerous model capabilities.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!Chen thanked Heidecke in his note to employees, saying it is “important that our safety work is integrated with frontier-model development, with an earlier and more direct role in shaping key model, product and launch decisions.” Heidecke is the latest in a string of senior safety figures to leave or be reorganised out of the company in the past two years.
