Amazon has made an important change involving its physical stores. Doug Herrington late last month was named CEO of the company’s Worldwide Stores business, a unit that was once known as Worldwide Consumer. The 17-year veteran of the company previously served as senior VP-North American Consumer business, a post he held since late 2015.
“I’m excited to share that Doug Herrington will become the new CEO of our Worldwide Amazon Stores business, said Amazon’s chief executive Andy Jassy in a message to his associates.
“He joined the company in 2005 to build out our consumables business, launched AmazonFresh in 2007, and in 2015, took on leading all of our North American Consumer business. Doug and I have worked together on S-team (senior executives) since 2011,” Jassy said. “He is a builder of great teams and brings substantial retail, grocery, demand generation, product development, and Amazon experience to bear. He’s also a terrific inventor for customers, thinks big, has thoughtful vision around how category management and ops can work well together, is a unifier, is highly curious, and an avid learner. I think Doug will do great things for customers and employees alike, and I look forward to working with him in this leadership role.”
In a related move, Jassy also announced that John Felton will lead all of Amazon’s operations. An 18-year veteran of the Seattle-based juggernaut, Felton spent most of his career in retail and operations finance management roles. In 2018, he moved to Worldwide Operations to become the VP-global customer fulfillment and a year later he took over the newly formed Global Delivery Services group, encompassing global import/export, Amazon Logistics, and the merchant’s last mile delivery services.
“John has strong end-to-end knowledge of our fulfillment network, operates with an important mix of strategic thinking and a command of the details that matter most in our network, is right a lot, and is a strong team builder who is dedicated to making Amazon a great place to work for our employees,” Jassy explained.
Felton will report to Herrington as will Russ Grandinetti (international stores), Christine Beauchamp (North America stores), Tony Hoggett (physical stores), Dave Treadwell (e-commerce foundation), Neil Lindsay (pharmacy/AmazonCare/healthcare), Dharmesh Mehta (selling partner services), Peter Larsen (Buy with Prime) and Pat Bajari (chief economist).
“This is a very strong and experienced leadership team. I remain very optimistic about our Stores business and believe we’re still in the early days of what’s possible. It’s worth remembering that Amazon currently only represents about 1 percent of the worldwide retail market segment share, and 85 percent of that worldwide market segment share still resides in physical stores. If you believe that equation will change over time, which I do, there’s a lot of potential for us as we continue to be laser-focused on providing the best customer experience (broadest selection, low prices, fast and convenient delivery) while working on our cost structure to have the right long-term business,” Jassy noted.
These changes, in part, were prompted by the June 3 announcement that Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO Dave Clark was resigning on July 1. A week later, Clark said he would become chief executive of supply chain software company Flexport, effective September 1.
