Indicating the increasing power of Amazon’s different divisions, the company has now formally named Jeff Wilke and Andy Jassy as CEOs, but Jeff Bezos remains the CEO of the entire company.
Amazon appears to be heading down the route taken by Google to create a larger Alphabet umbrella corporation with it deciding that its two divisions – Amazon Web Services and World Wide Consumer – are to get their very own CEOs.
Announcing the news on its blog, Amazon said that the roles created for Jassy – CEO of Amazon Web Services – and Jeff Wilke – CEO of World Wide Consumer – are largely just a change of title as their workloads will remain exactly the same.
Both Wilke and Jassy have been with Amazon since the early days of the company, with Wilke having joined in 1999 and previously holding the title of SVP of consumer business.
Meanwhile, Jassy joined Amazon back in 1997 and once held the role of technical assistant to current overall Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Thank you and congrats to my friends and colleagues Jeff and Andy – very well deserved! https://t.co/hGLGMDluKu
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 7, 2016
Bezos will still remain the head of the company, the same position he has held since it was founded way back in 1994.
Now makes $100bn in annual sales
According to GeekWire, however, the naming of Wilke and Jassy as CEOs could give a good indication of the shortlist for who might take over as CEO of Amazon when Bezos decides to step down.
After all, Bezos has become increasingly involved in his own separate space project, Blue Origin, and has said in previous interviews that his role within Amazon is now largely maintaining “a culture of high standards, of operational excellence, inventiveness, willingness to fail”.
Also stated in the announcement was the news that the company has become the fastest company ever to reach $100bn in annual sales, while Amazon Web Services reached annual sales of $10bn.
Amazon sign image via Eric Broder Van Dyke/Shutterstock
