Amazon's new CEO Andy Jassy is wasting no time making changes to his most senior group of executives.
Amazon has added two new members to its "S-team," a group of roughly two dozen senior executives who make the company's biggest decisions, Insider has learned.
James Hamilton, VP and distinguished engineer, and Drew Herdener, VP of worldwide communications, are the newest members of the S-team, according to people familiar with the matter. Hamilton, who's spent more than 12 years at Amazon, is one of the most prominent engineering executives at the company. Herdener, one of the most senior spokespeople at Amazon, has been part of the company's communications team since 2003. Hamilton's and Herdener's official titles remain the same.
Additionally, Amazon has promoted seven of its S-team members to senior vice president. Those include Colleen Aubrey (SVP of advertising), Christine Beauchamp (SVP of consumer), Alicia Boler Davis (SVP of global consumer fulfillment), John Felton (SVP of global delivery services), Neil Lindsay (SVP of worldwide Prime and marketing), Rohit Prasad (SVP of Alexa), and Dave Treadwell (SVP of e-commerce services).
In an email to Insider, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed the promotions. The changes were announced last week, ahead of the official CEO transition, and the decision was made by Jeff Bezos and Jassy together, the spokesperson said.
The move is one of the first official changes made under Jassy, who officially started as Amazon's CEO on Monday. The addition of Hamilton and Herdener to the S-team also reflects Jassy's intention to surround himself with technical people and communication experts he trusts. Hamilton is the first executive with the distinguished engineer title to join the S-team.
The addition of Hamilton to the S-team is particularly noteworthy because it addresses one of Jassy's perceived weaknesses of not having the technical chops to run a big technology company, according to a person familiar with the matter. Unlike Bezos, Jassy doesn't have an engineering background, and he leaned on Hamilton a lot when he ran Amazon Web Services, the person said. Bezos, on the other hand, was less reliant on other engineering execs because he was always confident in his technical chops, the person said.
Jassy, who joined Amazon in 1997, was named Amazon's CEO in February after Bezos, the company's founding CEO, announced his decision to become executive chairman.
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