Andy Jassy takes over from Jeff Bezos

As of today, Andy Jassy has officially taken over the role of CEO of Amazon. He will also join the e-commerce giant’s board of directors.

Anniversary

Exactly 27 years after Amazon was founded, the American company changes its leader for the first time. Andy Jassy, currently the head of Amazon Web Services, has taken charge of the day-to-day management of the e-commerce giant. However, Bezos will still be involved in important strategic decisions as executive chairman.

The 53-year-old has worked for Amazon since 1997, and is given 61,000 shares (currently worth around 180 million euros) as a bonus for taking the reins. When added to the stake he already owned, this makes Jassy the company’s second-largest shareholder, Charged Retail reports.

Challenges

Although Amazon achieved record sales last year partly thanks to the Covid pandemic, the transfer of power comes at a crucial time for the retail giant. The web giant’s market dominance is coming under increasing scrutiny from governments worldwide, and the retailer is facing antitrust issues, new regulations and broader resistance on multiple fronts.

Compared to his predecessor, Jassy is relatively unknown – even though he has long been regarded as a likely successor for Bezos. After all, Jassy had been the brains behind the enormous rise of AWS, a division that was founded in 2006 after the company realised that its finely tuned shopping platform could be sold as a product in itself by offering third-party web hosting, computing services and storage for relatively little money.

Under Jassy’s leadership, AWS has grown to become the world’s largest provider of cloud services. Many consider the division to be more valuable than the retail business. Last year, AWS sales grew by 28 % to 45 billion dollars (38 billion euros), 12 % of the group’s total. However, its profits exceeded those of the retail branch.