Meet the 14 most important executives at Amazon Web Services who report directly to CEO Andy Jassy as the $35 billion cloud faces an 'inflection year'
- We've identified the 14 top executives that directly report to Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy.
- Jassy and his executive team are expected to face a challenging year as AWS growth slows and competition intensifies, especially from Microsoft.
- AWS is still the cloud market leader with over $35 billion in annual revenue.
- The list reflects the rise of Larry Augustin, a software industry veteran who came to AWS last year - and shows how more AWS execs than ever are sitting on Jeff Bezos's elite S-team of advisors.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
While Amazon Web Services remains the leading cloud provider, it stands to face a challenging year in 2020, as growth slows and competition intensifies.
AWS reported 34% revenue growth in its most recent quarter, the slowest since disclosing that figure in 2015 (it still reported a record $35 billion in sales for 2019). Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to narrow the gap with AWS, expanding upon its deep network of existing business customers. Last year, Microsoft beat AWS for the highly-coveted JEDI cloud deal with the Defense Department (the deal is now being reviewed by Federal courts after Amazon protested the win).
"2020 is going to be an inflection year for AWS," Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Business Insider. "Certainly, a big focus is to defend its share versus Microsoft."
That makes AWS CEO Andy Jassy and his team's job all the more important this year. Business Insider has identified 14 of the most powerful people at AWS who report directly to Jassy, based on an internal document. His executive team includes roles ranging from infrastructure management and software development to the head of its Twitch livestreaming service.
The biggest changes
One of the biggest changes from last year is the reassignment of Adam Bosworth, a former Microsoft and Salesforce executive who joined AWS in 2016. He no longer reports directly to Jassy, and is now under Larry Augustin, a software industry veteran who came to AWS last year. Augustin was most recently CEO of SugarCRM, an open source customer management software company. His experience running a software company will prove valuable for AWS as it looks to move further into the business application space - and boost its appeal to open source developers.
Ariel Kelman, AWS's former marketing chief, has left earlier this year to join competitor Oracle as its chief marketing officer. In his place, AWS has put Rachel Thornton, who spent the last 5 years in various marketing roles at the company.
Meanwhile, Matt Garman, former VP of Compute Services, is seeing an expanded role this year as the newly appointed VP of sales and marketing. His team now includes AWS's top salespeople in government and commercial sectors, Teresa Carlson and Mike Clayville, as well as the marketing chief Thornton.
Elaine Chang, the head of AWS China, also reports up to Jassy, reflecting the region's importance. Chang replaced Alex Yung as the VP of AWS Sales China in June. While Amazon shut down its retail business in China, it has a growing presence in the country's cloud market.
Other notable changes to Jassy's team include the addition of Sean Boyle, the former CFO of AWS. Boyle left his CFO role this year to run a new project within AWS, Business Insider previously reported. Jassy's new technical advisor - better known as his "shadow," with the privelege of following the CEO to his every meeting - is now Soo Lee, who replaced Doug Yeum last year.
One interesting aspect of Jassy's team is that its responsibilities are not confined to the traditional cloud business. Emmett Shear, CEO of the Twitch streaming service, is one of his direct reports, as is Babak Parviz, who runs a mysterious health-focused team called Grand Challenge. Bing Gordon, a former board member of Amazon, is a strategic advisor for AWS, and is reportedly helping its "gaming-related efforts," according to The Information. Amazon's chief technology officer Werner Vogels also reports up to Jassy.
Perhaps the most meaningful change, however, is the increased number of AWS executives sitting on Amazon's "S-team," a group of top leaders that advise CEO Jeff Bezos on key business decisions. Over the past year, two AWS executives, Garman and Peter DeSantis, have joined the S-team, making it a total of four members, alongside Jassy and SVP of Utility Computing Services Charlie Bell. The growing presence of AWS leaders among Amazon's most senior executive team shows how important the cloud business has become to the broader company.
Meet the 14 people reporting directly to Jassy:
Babak Parviz, VP of Grand Challenge
Parviz, the former head of Google's moonshot lab X, joined Amazon in 2014 to lead a secretive team called Grand Challenge. His team is comprised of a number of health experts, indicating a focus on health-related projects. Parviz was previously an electrical engineering professor at the University of Washington.
Bing Gordon, Strategic Advisor
Gordon is a strategic advisor for AWS, and is reported to be helping the company's gaming business. He stepped down from Amazon's board in 2017, and is currently the chief product officer for the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Gordon also served as a long-time executive at Electronic Arts previously.
Charlie Bell, SVP, Utility Computing Services
Bell, who's been at Amazon since 1998, is one of the most senior executives at the company. He was responsible for the early development of AWS's infrastructure team, leading a group of engineers across datacenters, network, and servers. He's one of the few S-team members from AWS.
Elaine Chang, VP AWS Sales China
Chang was named as AWS China's lead last year, succeeding Alex Yung. She's responsible for the region's sales, marketing, and engineering teams, and oversees AWS's relationship with the Chinese government as well. Chang spent nearly 20 years at Intel before joining AWS in 2013.
Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch
Shear is the founder of Twitch, the video streaming service Amazon acquired for $970 million in 2014. He went to Yale University and graduated with a computer science degree in 2005.
James Hamilton, VP/Distinguished Engineer
Hamilton is one of the most high-profile executives at AWS, often representing the company at public events. Before joining Amazon in 2008, Hamilton spent nearly 20 years at Microsoft and IBM.
Larry Augustin, VP
Augustin, who most recently was CEO of SugarCRM, is a well-known software executive and a pioneer in open source technology. He was part of the group that first came up with the term "open source," and he's done extensive research in the area, according to his Linkedin profile.
Matt Garman, VP of AWS Sales and Marketing
Before Garman was put in charge of AWS's sales and marketing in January, he spent 7 years running its compute services team. Prior to that, he was part of the core EC2 server team. Garman is the latest addition to Bezos's S-team.
Michael Frazzini, VP of Game Services and Studios
Frazzini has spent over 15 years at Amazon in various roles including the books category manager. He joined the video games team in 2009 and was promoted to VP of Amazon Games in 2014. His team is in charge of creating "awe-inspiring games for players, broadcasters and viewers and game technology for developers," according to his Linkedin profile.
Peter DeSantis, VP of AWS Global Infrastructure
DeSantis was one of the first employees of AWS and played a critical role building up its technology from its early days. He currently runs all of AWS's core infrastructure business. Amazon promoted DeSantis to Bezos's S-team last year, signifying his rise in the ranks.
Sean Boyle, VP
Boyle, who joined Amazon in 2006 and was most recently CFO of AWS, has taken on a mysterious new role at AWS this year. It's unknown what exactly he's working on, but the fact that he now reports up to Jassy indicates its importance.
Soo Lee, Technical Advisor
Lee has been Jassy's technical advisor since June. Her role, better known as the "shadow" advisor, is highly-coveted within Amazon because she gets to follow Jassy to every meeting for 12 to 18 months, with the goal of learning about every aspect of the business. Previously, Lee was a director of financial agencies worldwide.
Stephen Schmidt, Chief Information Security Officer
Schmidt is in charge of information security at AWS. He first joined Amazon in 2008. Prior to that, he spent 10 years at the FBI as a senior executive.
Werner Vogels, VP and CTO
Vogels has been Amazon's CTO since 2005. He's one of the most visible executives on Jassy's team and gives a keynote speech every year at AWS's re:Invent conference.
