Ronak spent over 9 years at Amazon, where he led large businesses across Fulfillment, Ultra-fast delivery, Real Estate, Process Improvement, and Last Mile Delivery. Ronak was also the youngest Regional Director in Amazon history, with placement into Amazon’s highest volume, most critical region of fulfillment. After nearly a decade with the company, Ronak left Amazon to join Odeko as Chief Supply Chain Officer.    In this episode, Ronak shares how his career in operations leadership quickly...

Jennifer spent over 16 years at Amazon across various roles that included Financial Analyst, Product Manager, Head of Vendor Management, and Category Leader. During this time, Jennifer’s teams helped create new input metrics and ask questions to evolve Amazon’s use of data in the quest for operational excellence. Jennifer has since taken this ability to lead through data and questioning to launch a marketplace service for BuildDirect Technologies and consult various consumer brands in their...

In part two of this 2-episode special with Steve Frazier, a former 20-year Amazon VP, we pick up in talking about how to use data, focus on inputs, and exercise strong judgement in prioritizing your team’s attention in a scaling business.   You’ll hear Steve share:  ·        Why businesses should focus on operational performance reviews, even on day 1 ·        The 2 magical metrics that helped Amazon stay focused on the right actions as it scaled ·        The litmus test for a leader to know...

Steve spent over 20 years as a VP at Amazon where he launched multiple businesses and led organizations around the globe. During his Amazon career, Steve spent time as the country manager for Amazon UK and Amazon China, in addition to roles leading North American Retail expansion and the rollout of international consumer programs.    In this first installment of our two-episode conversation with Steve, we discuss Amazon’s approach to expanding businesses internationally and what it was like...

Umer spent nearly 12 years at Amazon as a software development leader across a diverse set of businesses including Amazon’s data warehouse, reverse logistics, Prime Now program, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market. Umer left Amazon in early 2018 to co-found Veeve, a contact-less shopping checkout solution, and in early 2021, Umer took on the role of CTO at fabric.inc, a high-growth startup providing headless commerce solutions for retail businesses.   In this interview, Umer shares how...

Mandy spent over 13 years at Amazon across a number of roles including as leader of product management, marketing, and retail buying teams, running Prime Pantry, leading the supply chain function for Amazon Private Label, and leading worldwide employee performance management programs. Since Amazon, Mandy has joined The Bouqs, an innovative e-commerce floral delivery service, where she is now VP of People and applying her input focused approach to driving improvements to organizational...

Justin spent 10 years at Amazon where he helped lead Baby Registry to becoming the #1 US registry, reinvented the vendor negotiation process that led to $1B in profitability improvements, and received a "Just Do It" award from Jeff Bezos for inventing a new communication system for vendors and sellers. In 2019, Justin left his role as Director of Amazon Device Sales and Marketing Technology to pursue several entrepreneurial endeavors. Today, Justin is the CEO of Data Spark, a technology...

Chad spent nearly 16 years at Amazon which included roles as Director of Fulfillment by Amazon and Director of Global Sales. Having joined Amazon in 1999, Chad helped build and develop many teams to lead these and other core Amazon businesses. Chad left Amazon in 2015 to build and co-lead The Goelzer Home Team and improve the customer focus and use of technology in real estate.    In this episode, you’ll enjoy Chad’s passion for creating and communicating a business vision and building teams....

Dave spent nearly 12 years at Amazon moving from a Development Manager to a Technology Director. In early 2020, Dave took on the role as Head of Technology for Bezos Academy where he spent over a year building their technology foundation. Since leaving Amazon and Bezos Academy in 2021, Dave has begun publishing regular leadership articles on his newsletter, Scarlet Ink.   In this episode, Dave and I dive into the Frugality principle and how it is ingrained in the resource allocation,...

Melissa spent 19 years, progressing through over ten roles that included Technical Advisor to Jeff Wilke, VP of Sports, Outdoors, and Toys, and VP of Sales and Marketing for Amazon Devices. After leaving Amazon, Melissa spent a year as COO of Glossier and recently launched a venture-backed startup, Modern Age, to help people live longer, healthier, happier lives.    In our conversation, we discuss Amazon’s Learn & Be Curious principle and how consistent curiosity and focused learning have...

Kyle spent over 7 years at Amazon where he launched multiple billion-dollar programs, including Amazon Renewed and Amazon Exclusives – now known as Amazon Launchpad. Since leaving Amazon in 2020, Kyle has co-founded two companies, The Lab Consult, which helps e-commerce brands implement systems to scale profitably online, and Foundry Brands, an FBA brand aggregator that recently raised $100M to buy and grow consumer brands. In this episode, Kyle shares examples of how listening to his...

Faisal spent over 7 years at Amazon as a Director over the early growth of several businesses including Mobile Electronics, Amazon Warehouse, Amazon BuyBack, Amazon TradeIn, and Amazon Basics. Building these programs  helped Faisal hone his ability to Dive Deep into business processes and health. Since leaving Amazon in 2011, Faisal held a number of VP and C-level roles for companies such as eBay, Groupon, Staples, and Google, before joining Fabric as CEO in 2020.    In this episode, Faisal...

Elizabeth spent 15 years at Amazon where she grew multiple billion-dollar businesses and held several roles including Director of Lawn & Garden and Director and General Manager of Business & Technology for Selling Partner Success prior to joining Kraft Heinz as VP of Global eCommerce.    In our conversation, Elizabeth shares the people-leadership practices that she built throughout her Amazon career and continues to apply in her role at Kraft Heinz. We also dig into how to balance...

John Rossman joined Amazon in 2002 as Director of Merchant Integration where he led the launch of Amazon’s 3P marketplace business. John also went on to lead the e-commerce solutions business for enterprise clients such as Target.com and Toys R Us before leaving in late 2005 to advise many companies on innovation and digital strategy and write three books on applying Amazon’s principles and mechanisms in business.    In our conversation, we discuss the foundational considerations and steps to...

Godwin spent 5 years at Amazon as a senior leader of product, retail and program teams. In each role, he led new innovations or launches for Amazon customers. Post Amazon, Godwin spent two years leading a business turnaround and is currently the co-founder at a real-estate tech startup where he continues to leverage the innovation processes he practiced at Amazon.    In this episode, you’ll hear how Godwin uses customer focus and document writing to develop and refine new solutions for...

Dave spent over 10 years at Amazon where he was a Technology Director prior to being asked to build the technology foundations for Bezos Academy.    In Part 2 of our conversation, Dave shares his experience as a bar raiser and member of Amazon’s Bar Raiser Core team, a committee tasked with directing how Amazon’s bar raiser hiring program would operate and grow. In this segment of the conversation, Dave shares how Amazon thinks about managing both the quality and quantity of bar raisers to...

Dave spent over 10 years at Amazon where he was a Technology Director prior to being asked to build the technology foundations for Bezos Academy.    In Part 1 of our conversation, Dave shares his experience and advice on how to develop leaders and accelerate their learning and career development. During his years at Amazon, Dave coached, mentored, and promoted many Amazon leaders and was also promoted three times himself. Throughout the conversation, Dave shares insights, lessons learned, and...

Colin spent 12 years on Amazon’s senior leadership team, including two years as “Chief of Staff” to Jeff Bezos. During this time, Colin had a front-row seat to the development and implementation of Amazon’s core operating principles and mechanisms, such as written memos, single-threaded teams, and the bar raiser program.    In early 2021, Colin, along with fellow ex-Amazon VP Bill Carr, released the book “Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon.”  In this...

John Olsen spent 7 years at Amazon as VP of Kindle Human Resources and VP of HR for Worldwide Operations. During these years of rapid global expansion for Amazon, John had to rely on proven principles and models to help ensure teams were making strong decisions, avoiding bias, and committed behind key goals. Since leaving Amazon in 2019, John has helped companies and boards learn to have backbone, disagree and commit in his roles as an advisor and investor.    During our conversation, John...

Ethan Evans spent over 15 years at Amazon where he held multiple VP roles across Appstore, Twitch, and Amazon Gaming. During this time, Ethan led teams of over 800 people, launched Prime Video and Twitch Prime programs, and has been issued more than 60 patents. During Ethan’s time at Amazon, he helped craft part of the Ownership leadership principle and witnessed the S-team and countless teams demonstrate Ownership and long-term thinking.    In our interview, Ethan shares how leaders should...

Allon spent nearly 7 years at Amazon, holding senior roles across both Amazon’s e-commerce retail category businesses and as Director of Prime Now. During these roles, Allon refined his ability to dive deep into a business and understand its critical levers, a skill he first acquired as a management consultant and now applies post-Amazon as he leads portfolio operations in private equity.    In this episode, you’ll hear how leaders can continue to stay connected to the key details of their...

Kim spent 12 years at Amazon where she managed various retail functions across Books, Grocery, Outdoors, and Tools categories, ultimately serving as director and category leader over a multi-billion-dollar business. Over the years, Kim relied on a customer-first approach to quickly navigate new role transitions and grow successful category businesses. Kim now exercises her customer obsession as Chief Customer Officer at Microsoft where she has leveraged many of the practices picked up at...

Skyler spent 8 years at Amazon in retail and data engineering leadership roles, including forming a team within Amazon Hardlines to identify and drive process improvements at scale to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings. Key to succeeding in these nascent and disruptive projects were the lessons Skyler learned that helped his team follow the Vocally Self-critical leadership principle. Whether you’re embarking on a new project, trying to earn trust with stakeholders, or...

Maju spent 8 years as Vice President for Amazon’s global logistics and fulfillment technology organizations. During his Amazon career, the scope of Maju’s role grew to oversee thousands of engineering, operations, and business employees across the globe. Earlier this year, Maju made the transition from Amazon to become CTO at Bolt, a startup that offers online one-click checkout technology to retailers.   Listen in to hear Maju describe how he leads innovation across large global...