Who is Amazon's next CEO?

Andy Jassy joined the world's largest retailer in 1997, the same year the e-commerce giant went public

Andy Jassy, chief executive of AWS, will replace Jeff Bezos as Amazon's chief executive in the coming months. Reuters

On Tuesday, Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos surprised markets when he announced his plan to hand the reins to Andy Jassy, the head of the company's on-demand cloud computing platform later in the year.

Mr Bezos will become executive chairman of the world's largest retailer after nearly 30 years as its chief executive - a process expected to complete in the third quarter of this year.

Mr Jassy, 52, who joined Amazon in 1997 – the year the company went public – played a crucial role in launching Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2006.

The cloud computing platform generated $45.37 billion worth of sales last year, almost 12 per cent of the company's total revenue of over $386bn, according to figures released on Tuesday. It competes with the likes of Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud and others.

"I took my last final exam at HBS [Harvard Business School], the first Friday of May in 1997 and I started Amazon next Monday … no, I didn't know what my job was going to be, or what my title was going to be," Mr Jassy said in a HBS podcast in September.

Initially, he joined Amazon’s eight-member marketing team, managing competitive intelligence and customer retention. After a few months, he was moved onto another project exploring new product categories.

After working in various departments and even as a shadow to Mr Bezos, Mr Jassy joined a team to create a "vision document" for how companies might operate in the future.

“And that's what turned into AWS … that was back in late 2003 ... since then I've been managing the AWS business,” he added.

Mr Jassy, who had the opportunity to work closely with Mr Bezos during the early days of his career, described him as an unusual thinker.

“I don't know if I've ever seen anybody with the mix of skills that he has. He is very inventive. He is an unusual mix of both having strong technical competence, but also very strong customer empathy. You don't usually find those two in a single person,” Mr Jassy said.

Mr Jassy has also spoken out on a number of social issues, such as the death of George Floyd while in custody of the Minneapolis police last year. Mr Jassy is married to fashion designer Elana Rochelle Caplan and is the father of two children.

Amazon, which employs 1.3 million people and has a $1.7 trillion market cap, reported its first $100bn-plus financial quarter on Tuesday, owing to what it called a "record-breaking holiday season". The company earned $125.56bn of revenue, making a net profit of $7.2bn.

"Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence," Mr Bezos said in a statement announcing his appointment.

“Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else.”

As executive chairman, Mr Bezos said he will engage in important Amazon initiatives and focus on other programmes such as the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, space flight company Blue Origin and The Washington Post.

“This isn’t about retiring. I am super passionate about the impact I think these organisations can have,” he said.