Who Are Amazon’s Executives? (AMZN)

In 1994, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launched one of the biggest success stories in modern business history. What began strictly as an online bookseller slowly evolved into a purveyor of hundreds of different product lines. Amazon (AMZN) grew into a global e-commerce and cloud computing giant, with a $1.65 trillion market capitalization value as of Feb. 2, 2024.

Bezos is widely lauded as a visionary in e-commerce. But he owes much of his success to the management team that helped develop Amazon’s many silos and executed the company’s rapid growth.

Below, we sketch out the profiles of Amazon’s founder and six of the company’s top executives. We highlight the various roles they have held at Amazon, their contributions to the company, previous roles at other companies, and their educational backgrounds.

Amazon's Executives

Amazon currently has a total of seven officers and 10 directors on its books.

Directors essentially sit on the board and oversee the management of the corporation. They often balance this job with others. Officers, on the other hand, are the people responsible for the day-to-day management of the corporation. That includes the chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), and department heads. These figures run the business and are its top executives.

Amazon’s top executives are:

• Jeffrey P. Bezos: Executive Chair
• Andy Jassy: President and CEO
• Brian T. Olsavsky: Senior Vice President and CFO
• Douglas J. Herrington: CEO, Worldwide Amazon Stores
• Shelley L. Reynolds: Vice President, Worldwide Controller
• Adam N. Selipsky: CEO, Amazon Web Services
• David A. Zapolsky: Senior Vice President, Global Public Policy & General Counsel

Jeffrey P. Bezos

• Current position(s): Executive chair
• Joined Amazon: Founded the company in 1994
• Education: BSE in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University

Jeff Bezos stepped down from his role as CEO in July 2021 and currently serves as Amazon’s executive chair.

He launched Amazon as an online bookstore from the garage of his rental home in Seattle in 1994, and it has since grown into one of the biggest companies in the world. From cloud computing to groceries to advertising to healthcare, Amazon has made itself felt in just about every major industry.

Under his leadership, Amazon in 2005 launched Amazon Prime, which offered two-day shipping on more than one million items when the standard in the retail industry was up to six days. Amazon Prime has since added access to video and music streaming and now boasts more than 200 million subscribers worldwide.

In 2006, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform was launched under Bezos’ direction. He also helped Amazon build its own delivery and logistics business. Today, most Amazon packages are delivered by Amazon employees or contractors.

Before founding Amazon, Bezos worked for a telecommunications start-up named Fitel. He also worked at Banker’s Trust, which is now a part of Deutsche Bank AG, and at hedge fund D.E. Shaw.

Andy Jassy

• Current position(s): President and chief executive officer
• Joined Amazon: 1997
• Education: A.B. from Harvard University and MBA from Harvard Business School

Andy Jassy currently serves as Amazon’s president and CEO. He also serves on the board of directors.

Jassy is considered the founder of AWS, the company’s most profitable major business. He led AWS from its 2006 inception—including as its CEO, beginning in April 2016—until July 2021. Under his leadership, AWS became the most broadly adopted cloud platform.

Jassy’s success has been attributed to his ability to attract a range of different types of businesses and organizations to the AWS cloud platform, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Democratic National Committee, Pinterest Inc., Lyft Inc., and more. He first joined the company in 1997 and held various leadership roles before founding AWS.

Brian T. Olsavsky

• Current position(s): Senior vice president and chief financial officer
• Joined Amazon: April 2002
• Education: B.S. in mechanical engineering from Penn State and MBA in finance from Carnegie Mellon University

Brian Olsavsky first joined Amazon in the spring of 2002 and has been senior vice president (SVP) and CFO since June 2015. He oversees Amazon’s overall financial activities, including tax, treasury, investor relations, internal audit, and other financial operations.

Prior to becoming SVP and CFO, Olsavsky was Amazon’s vice president (VP) of finance and CFO for the company’s Global Consumer Business. In those roles, he oversaw the company’s websites and merchant services as well as fulfillment operations and subsidiaries.

Olsavsky also served as VP of finance for Amazon’s North America retail business unit and acquisitions from 2007 to 2010. Before that, from 2002 to 2007, he was in charge of the finance departments for Amazon’s Worldwide Operations organization.

Prior to joining Amazon, Olsavsky served in financial and other roles at Fisher Scientific, BF Goodrich, and Union Carbide.

Douglas J. Herrington

• Current position(s): Chief executive officer, Worldwide Amazon Stores
• Joined Amazon: 2005
• Education: B.A. in economics from Princeton University and MBA from Harvard Business School.

Douglas Herrington has been at Amazon since 2005. He first joined the company to launch its consumables business. Ten years later, he was appointed SVP of North America Consumer, then, in July 2022, he got another promotion and became one of Amazon's top lieutenants.

In his current role as CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, Herrington is in charge of leading various businesses, including Amazon’s global online and mobile shopping experiences, global operations and fulfillment, Prime, Amazon Grocery, Amazon Business, Selling Partner Services, and Amazon Health Services. He took this job over from David Clark, a longstanding Amazon employee who, among other things, played a key role in Amazon’s $775 million acquisition of Kiva Systems Inc. and the creation of its own air delivery network.

Herrington is said to be passionate about building and innovating. In his many years at the company, he led teams that invented services such as Subscribe and Save, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Business, Alexa Shopping, and Buy with Prime. 

Before joining Amazon, Herrington was the founder and CEO of KeepMedia. He previously also served on the executive team at online grocery retailer Webvan.

Shelley L. Reynolds

• Current position(s): Vice president, Worldwide Controller
• Joined Amazon: February 2006
• Education: B.A. from the University of Washington Foster School of Business

Shelley Reynolds is VP, Worldwide Controller, a position that requires her to oversee Amazon’s global accounting functions.

She first joined the company in February 2006, assuming the role of VP of Finance and Controller. A little over 12 months later, she was promoted to VP, Worldwide Controller and principal accounting officer. Reynolds is said to have played a key role in helping Amazon to develop accounting systems capable of scaling in tandem with its incredible growth.

Prior to joining the company, Reynolds spent 19 years at Deloitte & Touche LLP, where she was a partner from 1998 to 2006.

Adam N. Selipsky

• Current position(s): Chief executive officer, Amazon Web Services
• Joined Amazon: 2005
• Education: A.B. in government from Harvard University and MBA from Harvard Business School

Adam Selipsky is CEO of AWS. He is also in charge of Amazon's sustainability arm, overseeing efforts to scale and drive the company's adoption of renewable energy, path to net-zero carbon emissions, and so forth.

Unlike some of the other executives, Selipsky’s tenure with Amazon has not been continuous. He first joined the company in 2005 as VP of marketing, sales and support for AWS, then left that job and Amazon in September 2016 to become president and CEO of Tableau, a provider of data analytics software-as-a-service (SaaS). Just under five years later, in May 2021, Selipsky returned to take charge of AWS, the cloud service he helped build from a startup into a multi-billion-dollar business. 

Prior to first joining Amazon, Selipsky held various positions at RealNetworks Inc., an Internet streaming media company, and was a principal at strategy consulting firm Mercer Management Consulting.

David A. Zapolsky

• Current position(s): Senior vice president, global public policy and general counsel
• Joined Amazon: November 1999
• Education: B.A. in music from Columbia University and J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley

David Zapolsky has been SVP, general counsel, and secretary since May 2014. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the company’s legal, policy, compliance, and regulatory affairs.

Over the years, Zapolsky has played a key role in advising Amazon on a number of legal matters, including scrutiny of the company’s competitive practices and a unionization effort. He joined the company as associate general counsel for litigation and regulatory matters and has been promoted several times since.

Before joining Amazon, Zapolsky served as a partner at the Seattle offices of Dorsey & Whitney and Bogle & Gates, as an assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, and as a practicing lawyer at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

The Bottom Line

Amazon’s leadership team have been instrumental in its success. They’ve all been at the company for at least nearly two decades and each in some way played a crucial role in turning Amazon into a multi-billion dollar business. Between them, they have helped develop and invent some of Amazon’s best and most profitable services, run key divisions, and navigated the tech giant through various challenges.

When people talk about Amazon's success, they often think about its founder Jeff Bezos, and overlook his right-hand men and women. Without Bezos' lieutenants, Amazon would not be the same company it is today.