Daveclark, one of Amazon’s long-time leaders and CEO of global consumers, is about to leave the company to seek unspecified “other opportunities” and suddenly withdraw from the management of the technology giant.
Less than a year ago, Amazon CEO andyjassy succeeded founder jeffbezos to take the post. He announced the news in an email to employees on Friday morning, saying the move was Clark’s decision.
The company has not appointed a direct successor. Clark’s last day was July 1.
Jassy wrote that Amazon still has “more work ahead of us to achieve the position we ultimately want to achieve in the consumer business”. “To this end, we are considering Dave’s succession plan and any changes we have made. I hope to update you in the coming weeks.”
It is reported that Clark sold his house in Seattle and moved to Dallas last year. This move attracted people’s attention, but considering its geographical diversity, the company ignored it at that time.
Clark, who previously served as the head of Amazon’s global operations, succeeded Jeff Wilke as the CEO of Amazon’s global consumers in early 2021. During his tenure, the company faced unprecedented challenges, including the impact of the epidemic, and Amazon warehouse workers promoted the establishment of trade unions. Clark wrote in a letter to Amazon employees: “although I like this trip very much, it is time for me to say goodbye and start a new journey.”. “For some time, I have discussed my intention to quit Amazon with my family and other people close to me, but I want to ensure the success of the team. I believe it is time.”
He added, “We have a strong leadership team in the consumer industry. With the passing of the customer experience challenges faced by the company during the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, we are ready to meet more challenges. We have also developed a solid multi-year plan to meet the inflation challenge in 2022. When I left, I knew that the leaders in the consumer industry are world-class and will take the next stage of action.” F Amazon has achieved extraordinary success. ”
Clark did not disclose his future plans.
Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of violating the labor law before the final successful union vote at the Staten Island factory in New York.
In addition, several well-known Democratic congressmen sent a letter to jasi, asking for more information about Amazon’s plan to develop a chat application for warehouse workers, and initially put forward the idea of preventing the use of specific keywords such as “labor union”, “salary increase” and “plantation” in the application. Amazon called the interception report on April 4 premature, and said that the report did not reflect the company’s actual plan.
Amazon’s consumer business has been struggling financially in recent months because the company’s increased workers and warehouse capacity exceeded the ultimate need to deal with the epidemic. Jassy told shareholders last week that he “believes that our consumer business will return to a healthy level of profitability.”
Had it not been for the profitable Amazon Web Services cloud division previously led by Jassy, the company’s operating loss in the first quarter would have exceeded $2.8 billion.
Clark’s salary in 2021 was $175000, and the value of restricted shares exceeded $55million. The company described this stock award and the $12.6 million in his 2020 $46million stock award as a “special grant”, which was granted simultaneously with his promotion to CEO of global consumers for a total of seven years.
The grant of these grants usually requires continued employment with the company.
Amazon did not provide further details of Clark’s departure in the SEC filing.
Here is the full note from Jassy to employees this morning:
After 23 years with Amazon, Dave Clark has decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities. His last day in the office will be July 1.
Dave joined our Operations Pathways Program in May 1999—just a day after graduating from his MBA program—and he took the leap from teaching music to helping us build and scale our Consumer Operations. Dave has had an increasingly large impact across the company, starting as an Operations Manager in Kentucky, growing to a GM in the Northeast, stepping up to lead WW Operations, and then eventually leading all of WW Consumer. He’s led teams who’ve designed several generations of FCs, built out Amazon’s transportation network from scratch, and has developed significant talent throughout the organization.
Please join me in thanking Dave for his many accomplishments over the years at Amazon and especially for what he’s delivered for customers. The past few years have been among the most challenging and unpredictable we’ve faced in the history of Amazon’s Consumer business, and I’m particularly appreciative of Dave’s leadership during that time.
As we shared last week during our annual shareholder meeting, we still have more work in front of us to get to where we ultimately want to be in our Consumer business. To that end, we’re trying to be thoughtful in our plans for Dave’s succession and any changes we make. I expect to be ready with an update for you over the next few weeks.
While change is never easy, I’m optimistic about the plan that the Consumer team has built and have confidence that if we stay focused on executing it, we’ll deliver the right experiences for customers and results for the business.
Please feel free to cascade to your leaders and teams.
Thanks,
Andy