diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index b802edd3194ba..c5b035de3812c 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -305,10 +305,11 @@ if (LLAMA_BLAS)
 
     add_compile_definitions(GGML_USE_OPENBLAS)
 
-    add_subdirectory(../OpenBLAS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/OpenBLAS)
+    set(LLAMA_EXTRA_LIBS     ${LLAMA_EXTRA_LIBS}     openblas)
 
-    set(LLAMA_EXTRA_LIBS     ${LLAMA_EXTRA_LIBS}     openblas_shared)
-    set(LLAMA_EXTRA_INCLUDES ${LLAMA_EXTRA_INCLUDES} ../OpenBLAS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/OpenBLAS)
+    # we need to add the shared openblas library we built in our over-arching project
+    # this directory includes the "config.h" file generated by OpenBLAS
+    set(LLAMA_EXTRA_INCLUDES ${LLAMA_EXTRA_INCLUDES} ../OpenBLAS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/../../openblas)
 endif()
 
 if (LLAMA_LLAMAFILE)