- Jeff Wilke — the head of the Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) consumer business — announced today that he was planning to retire early next year following over two decades of work at the online retail giant
Jeff Wilke — the head of the Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) consumer business — announced today that he was planning to retire early next year following over two decades of work at the online retail giant. The 53-year-old executive has been one out of the two chiefs of specific operations at Amazon who reports to CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. Amazon cloud head Andy Jassy is the other.
Going forward, Dave Clark, 47, the senior vice president who has run Amazon’s operations — including its logistics and supply chain — will take over Wilke’s role.
“So why leave? It’s just time,” wrote Wilke in an email to staff. Wilke pointed out that he was “as happy with and proud of Amazon as ever.”
Wilke was hired to oversee operations in 1999. At that time, Amazon had just expanded into five warehouses and did not have much operational experience. Then in 2016, Bezos named Wilke as the chief executive of the consumer business. As of last year, the consumer business of the company hit $245 billion in global revenue — which is about double three years earlier.
Even though Amazon is based in Seattle, Wilke has been living part-time in Los Angeles. And it is estimated that Wilke has made over $200 million while working at Amazon.
Wilke also revealed that three executives are joining Bezos’ senior leadership team, including Alicia Boler Davis (vice president of global customer fulfillment), John Felton (vice president of global delivery services), and Dave Treadwell (vice president of Amazon’s eCommerce Foundation). Clark also joined Amazon in 1999 and he became Amazon’s global logistics head in 2013.
