Proactive Investors - Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) fell on Tuesday as news broke its Web Services chief executive, Adam Selipsky, was to step down in June.
Having initially joined the company in 2005, Selipsky will leave next month and be succeeded by sales senior vice president Matt Garman, a memo said on Tuesday.
“We were fortunate that Adam agreed to step in and lead AWS,” Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy said in the statement.
“[He] has deftly led the business, while also developing his leadership team.
“Adam is now going to move onto his next challenge (after taking a well-deserved respite), and Matt Garman will become CEO of AWS, effective June 3rd.”
The AWS unit, which provides cloud computing platforms, accounted for some 17% of Amazon’s overall revenue over the first quarter, alongside 62% of its operating income.
Under Selipsky’s leadership since 2021, sales at the unit doubled from US$45.4 billion in the year prior to his appointment to US$90.8 billion in 2023.
This includes through the likes of a US$4 billion investment in AI start-up Anthropic, alongside moving into generative AI, including with the adoption of NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, ETR:NVD) chips, while Amazon’s own processing units are rolled out.
Jassy, who had led the business before Selipsky, noted he left AWS in “a strong position, having reached a $100 billion annual revenue run rate this past quarter”.
Selipsky’s successor, Garman, has held roles at AWS for almost 18 years, with Jassy adding he was to take the helm in “still such early days [for] AWS”.
Amazon fell 0.4% to US$185.79.