London chosen as base for OpenAI’s new global founder team
Key Points
- OpenAI is creating a new global team called Founder Experience to support startup founders building on its models
- The team will be based in London and led by Laura Modiano, OpenAI's current EMEA startups lead
- Founder Experience covers founder programmes, technical activation, ecosystem partnerships, investor relationships and community engagement
- The move expands Modiano's previous EMEA work to a worldwide remit and was announced via her own X post on 18 May 2026, not by OpenAI directly
- It follows OpenAI's April 2026 lease of an 88,500 square foot permanent London office at Regent Quarter in King's Cross, opening in 2027 with capacity for 544 staff
Laura Modiano, OpenAI’s EMEA Startups Lead, will head the firm’s new global founder support team from London.
Modiano announced on Monday (18 May) that she will run the new worldwide unit, called Founder Experience.
The team takes her previous EMEA remit to a global scale and will operate from the UK capital. Its work covers founder programmes, technical activation, ecosystem partnerships, investor relationships and community engagement.
OpenAI has not yet published a separate company statement on the function.
“I’m excited to be stepping into a new role at OpenAI leading Founder Experience, taking the work I’ve been doing with founders, developers and investors across EMEA to a global level,” Modiano said in a post on X.
The appointment follows OpenAI’s confirmation in April that it had signed a lease for its first permanent London office. The 88,500 square foot space at Regent Quarter in King’s Cross will have capacity for 544 staff when it opens in 2027, more than doubling OpenAI’s current UK headcount of around 200.
The company has positioned the city as its largest research hub outside the United States, despite pausing its Stargate UK data centre project earlier this year over energy costs and regulation.
Modiano joined OpenAI from Amazon Web Services, where she spent four years as a principal technology business development lead working with venture capital firms and the founders they backed.
She has run hackathons, founder dinners and accelerator partnerships across European cities and is also an angel investor. She has previously called on European founders to give OpenAI more direct feedback on its models, citing Swedish vibe coding firm Lovable as an example of close collaboration.
“Founder Experience is focused on helping founders move fast, be supported from Day 1 and through every stage of growth,” Modiano said.
