Toner got her board seat because she was basically Holden Karnofsky's designated replacement:
> Holden Karnofsky resigns from the Board, citing a potential conflict because his wife, Daniela Amodei, is helping start Anthropic, a major OpenAI competitor, with her brother Dario Amodei. (They all live(d) together.) The exact date of Holden’s resignation is unknown; there was no contemporaneous press release.
> Between October and November 2021, Holden was quietly removed from the list of Board Directors on the OpenAI website, and Helen was added (Discussion Source). Given their connection via Open Philanthropy and the fact that Holden’s Board seat appeared to be permanent, it seems that Helen was picked by Holden to take his seat.
https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board
> it seems that Helen was picked by Holden to take his seat.
So you can only speculate as to how she got the seat. Which is exactly my point. We can only speculate. And it's a question worth asking, because governance of America's most important AI company is a very important topic right now.