Amazon’s cloud business has named Adam Selipsky as its new CEO

by

His employment is part of a major leadership transition to Amazon (AMZN) after founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced in February that he would take over as chief executive later this year, and will be replaced as executive director by Andy Jassy, ​​the current head of Amazon’s web services. The ascension plan strengthened AWS’s importance for the future of the internet giant and raised big questions about who will take over.

Selipsky has spent nearly five years as chief executive of data cloud company Tableau, during which time the company’s value quadrupled before being acquired by Salesforce for $ 15.7 billion in 2019.

Prior to that, he held several senior roles at AWS. Selipsky was hired in 2005 as one of the first vice presidents of the business after starting just two years earlier and selling, marketing and assisting AWS for 11 years, according to a letter sent by Jassy to AWS employees on Tuesday.

However, Selipsky is not one of several internal executives that analysts predicted could get the best job, including Matt Garman, AWS’s director of sales and marketing.

“Adam brings strong judgment, customer obsession, team building, demand generation and the experience of the CEO of an already very strong AWS leadership team,” Jassy said in the letter. “And with such a high role at AWS for 11 years, he knows our culture and business well.”

Selipsky will return to Amazon on May 17 and spend a few weeks in transition before officially taking over as CEO in the third quarter, according to Jassy’s letter.

He has big shoes to fill: Jassy has overseen the rapid growth of AWS for nearly two decades in a $ 50 billion business that contributes more than half of Amazon’s total revenue and provides the backbone for much of the internet.

While Jeff Bezos gives up, Amazon is waiting for its future on the cloud
The growth potential for AWS is still huge, as more companies and government agencies move their data from local servers to the cloud. But the cloud computing market has become even more crowded: Amazon now needs to defend its oversized market share against increasingly fierce competitors, especially Microsoft (MSFT) Azure.

“It’s easy to forget that AWS is still in the early stages of what is possible,” Jassy said. “We have a lot more to invent for customers and we have a very strong management team and a group of builders to make this happen. I’m excited about what awaits us.”

Brian Klingbeil, director of strategy at hybrid IT provider and partner AWS Enoso, called Selipsky’s hiring “a smart move” by Amazon.

“It will be important to follow Selipsky’s strategic moves to match the pace of AWS with Azure and even the upward momentum of Google Cloud,” Klingbeil said.

.Source