Jeff Wilke, who began at Amazon in 1999, will leave his position as CEO of the Worldwide Consumer unit in Q1 2021. He will be succeeded by current SVP Worldwide Operations Dave Clark, another 20+-year Amazon veteran who has held managerial positions at several fulfillment centers and helped establish the company’s FC in Tokyo.
“I’m planning to retire in Q1 of next year,” wrote Wilke in an Amazon blog post. “I don’t have a new job, and am as happy with and proud of Amazon as ever. I treasure the deep relationships we forged as we grew this company. From Jeff Bezos and my S-team colleagues to the hundreds and hundreds of leaders throughout Amazon who apply our Leadership Principles every single day. We worked hard. And we had a blast. So why leave? It’s just time.”
Wilke is credited with building up Amazon’s logistics capabilities during his tenure. He also made a point of ensuring all new employees spent time in its fulfillment centers (FCs) so they better understood what happens on the front lines.
Wilke also routinely spent time each December at different FCs — wearing flannel shirts to guard against the cold — and he wrote about why this was a vital part of each employee’s orientation: “We created Customer Connections so that every new employee spent time in an FC or Customer Service. I doubled down on representing our Operations team in the corporate environment, including starting every meeting with a safety tip. And I started to wear my flannel shirts every day of Q4. The flannel gave me a chance to talk about our operations and remind everyone of how dedicated and customer-focused our colleagues in the field were, too.”
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Amazon also announced the addition of three executives to its top leadership council:
- Alicia Boler Davis, VP, Global Customer Fulfillment;
- John Felton, VP, Global Delivery Services; and
- David Treadwell, VP, eCommerce Services.
