OpenAI is making a serious play for the financial services sector, and it’s putting two heavy hitters on its board to prove it. The company announced that David Vélez, the founder and CEO of the digital banking giant Nubank, and Robin Vince, the CEO of the 240-year-old BNY, are joining the boards of both the OpenAI Foundation and the for-profit Group PBC.
These aren’t token appointments. Vélez built Nubank from a frustration with Brazilian banking into a platform with over 135 million customers. He’s a genuine force in democratizing access to financial tools. Vince, on the other hand, represents the old guard mastering the new playbook. Since taking the helm of BNY in 2022, he’s been pushing the bank to simplify its operations and ramp up investment in AI and data. Together, they form a pincer movement on finance: one board member who built a new digital bank from scratch, and another who’s reinventing a centuries-old institution.
The move gives OpenAI direct board-level insight into an industry that’s both a massive potential customer and a regulatory minefield. BNY’s Vince addressed this directly, calling AI “the ultimate capacity creator” while stressing the need for “strong governance, and responsible deployment.” Vélez echoed a trust-first approach, saying technology built “around people’s needs and grounded in trust” can expand opportunity. The subtext is clear: OpenAI wants to sell its enterprise tools, like ChatGPT Enterprise, to risk-averse banks, and it needs credibility at the top to do it.
This also bolsters the nonprofit side of OpenAI’s increasingly complex structure. Both Vélez and Vince have extensive philanthropic track records, which aligns with the Foundation’s stated mission. But the practical effect is likely more commercial. As Bret Taylor, OpenAI’s board chair, noted, their experience will be invaluable as OpenAI “serves more businesses.” The company is signaling that it’s ready to be a core part of the financial infrastructure, and it just gave the industry two very good reasons to pick up the phone.
