After Jeff Bezos Hands Out Promotions, Amazon Now Has Three CEOs

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (Photo: Peter Foley/Bloomberg)

Amazon.com AMZN +0.38% announced on Thursday that two of its longest-serving executives have received promotions. In a blog post, the Seattle-based online retailer said that its head of its consumer business, Jeff Wilke, and the head of its cloud computing division, Andy Jassy, had been named CEO Worldwide Consumer and CEO Amazon Web Services, respectively.
Wilke and Jassy have already led those divisions for some time and the company noted that it was “not a reorganization but rather a recognition of the roles they’ve played for a while.” Jassy, according to his LinkedIn page has been with Amazon since 2003, while Wilke, has been with the company for more than 16 years.
“Marketplace, Prime and AWS are examples of bold bets at Amazon that worked, and they’ve become our three big pillars,” the company said in its blog post. “And as we’ve grown as a company and those three pillars have also grown, we’ve decided it makes sense to change the titles of the leaders of those businesses.”
The title changes will undoubtedly lead to questions about succession planning at the company. In Dec. 2014, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said at a conference that Amazon did indeed have a succession plan, but called it a “secret.” An Amazon spokesperson said in an email to FORBES that “it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss specifics, but our board discusses succession planning at least annually.”
Bezos, who founded in Amazon in 1994, has committed his time to various interests outside of the online retailer of late. In recent months, he’s overseen the launches and landings of reusable rockets at Blue Origin, the private aerospace manufacturer he created, and made several public appearances as the owner of The Washington Post, which he bought in 2013 for $250 million

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (Photo: Peter Foley/Bloomberg)

Amazon.com AMZN +0.38% announced on Thursday that two of its longest-serving executives have received promotions. In a blog post, the Seattle-based online retailer said that its head of its consumer business, Jeff Wilke, and the head of its cloud computing division, Andy Jassy, had been named CEO Worldwide Consumer and CEO Amazon Web Services, respectively.
Wilke and Jassy have already led those divisions for some time and the company noted that it was “not a reorganization but rather a recognition of the roles they’ve played for a while.” Jassy, according to his LinkedIn page has been with Amazon since 2003, while Wilke, has been with the company for more than 16 years.
“Marketplace, Prime and AWS are examples of bold bets at Amazon that worked, and they’ve become our three big pillars,” the company said in its blog post. “And as we’ve grown as a company and those three pillars have also grown, we’ve decided it makes sense to change the titles of the leaders of those businesses.”
The title changes will undoubtedly lead to questions about succession planning at the company. In Dec. 2014, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said at a conference that Amazon did indeed have a succession plan, but called it a “secret.” An Amazon spokesperson said in an email to FORBES that “it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss specifics, but our board discusses succession planning at least annually.”
Bezos, who founded in Amazon in 1994, has committed his time to various interests outside of the online retailer of late. In recent months, he’s overseen the launches and landings of reusable rockets at Blue Origin, the private aerospace manufacturer he created, and made several public appearances as the owner of The Washington Post, which he bought in 2013 for $250 million.

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In a letter to shareholders earlier this week, Bezos praised the growth of what he sees as the company’s three main businesses, including marketplace and Prime, which are overseen by Wilke, and AWS, which is Jassy’s domain. Of AWS, Bezos said the business is on track to $10 billion in sales and has 1 million active customers.