Dive Brief:
- AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is departing the cloud provider after three years as its leader, Amazon said Tuesday.
- After almost 15 combined years at Amazon, Selipsky will step down to spend time with family and plan the “next adventure,” the executive said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
- Matt Garman, an 18-year AWS veteran who most recently served as SVP, AWS Sales, Marketing and Global Services, will take over as CEO effective June 3.
Dive Insight:
Selipsky, who took on the CEO role in 2021 after a stint leading software company Tableau, is leaving AWS at a time when AI enthusiasm is helping to drive cloud migrations and demand.
“We see considerable momentum on the AI front, where we’ve accumulated a multibillion-dollar revenue run rate already,” Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy said, during the tech giant’s Q1 2024 earnings call in April. AWS year-over-year revenue growth hit 17.2%, up from 13.2% in the previous quarter.
AWS’ AI strategy of offering companies the foundation to customize models and get assistance from a generative AI chatbot has started to pay off.
Jassy touted AWS’ cloud security during the latest earnings call, and again in a message shared with staff Tuesday, as enterprise concerns around AI risks mount.
“Adam leaves AWS in a strong position, having reached a $100 billion annual revenue run rate this past quarter, with YoY revenue accelerating again,” Jassy said in the statement. “And perhaps most importantly, AWS continues to lead on operational performance, security, reliability and the overall breadth and depth of our services.”
Even as AWS holds on to its dominant 31% share of the cloud market, the pressure is on to serve enterprise clients and meet their heightened expectations for cloud vendors.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the leadership changes.
“There will naturally be some organizational adjustments that we will make as part of this transition, so look for details on those in the coming weeks,” Garman said in a message to AWS teams Tuesday.
