AWS Veteran Charlie Bell Expected to Take a C-Level Job Elsewhere

  • Charlie Bell is a 23-year Amazon veteran and one of many masterminds behind its cloud enterprise.
  • Last week, it was announced he would leave Amazon Web Services, in a shocking transfer.
  • Now, high AWS insiders say they assume he might take a C-level job at one other firm — and shortly.

23-year Amazon veteran Charlie Bell — one of many key masterminds behind the Amazon Web Services cloud enterprise, alongside now-Amazon CEO Andy Jassy — left the company last week, in a move that surprised many insiders.

Two Amazon Web Services insiders say the standard knowledge among the many high ranges of Amazon is that Bell, as soon as thought of a frontrunner to change Jassy and the senior vice chairman of AWS’s essential utility computing enterprise, left to take a C-level position at one other firm.

One of the Amazon insiders stated Bell may very well be taking a CEO job elsewhere, whereas the opposite believes that Bell is taking some sort of C-level place — however not essentially the CEO position — at a massive expertise firm. Neither Bell nor Amazon Web Services have been accessible for remark on the time of publication.

Several of Bell’s former coworkers inform Insider that they imagine one purpose a high position elsewhere might have lured him away was as a result of Adam Selipsky was chosen to change Jassy because the CEO of AWS in a management transition that formally took impact a little over a month in the past. Jassy, in flip, changed founder Jeff Bezos because the CEO of all of Amazon.

Bell first joined Amazon simply after the corporate went public in 1998, and served on the corporate’s S-Team senior management workforce. Only weeks after the CEO transition, Selipsky notified Amazon VPs in an e mail on Aug. 9 that Bell deliberate to depart the corporate. Selipsky’s e mail did not reveal something about Bell’s post-Amazon plans. 

“Charlie has been instrumental in so a lot of crucial initiatives at Amazon,” Selipsky wrote within the e mail, considered by Insider. “His influence has been deeply felt throughout your entire firm and actually throughout many years.”

Bell’s departure got here as a shock to many Amazon insiders: Bell solely notified his experiences that he was leaving the corporate on his final day within the workplace, one stated. “It was a full shock,” the individual stated.

At the identical time, the insiders famous that Selipsky and Bell had as soon as been friends at AWS, earlier than Selipsky left Amazon in 2016 to turn out to be CEO of Tableau, the info evaluation firm since acquired by Salesforce. With Selipsky now returned to AWS as its new CEO, Bell would have reported to his former colleague if he had stayed.

Bell is arguably probably the most outstanding govt to depart Amazon this yr as the corporate orchestrated its largest ever govt suite overhaul to date, however he is hardly the primary: Amazon has seen a brain drain of dozens of vice presidents and other senior executives in the past year and a half. Those shut to Amazon say that Bell’s departure might have dramatic implications for the cloud unit.

“Charlie leaving is a greater deal than anyone – a greater deal than Andy,” one former AWS govt informed Insider. “Charlie is the guts and soul of engineering.”

Do you’re employed at Amazon Web Services or have perception to share? Contact reporter Ashley Stewart through the encrypted-messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or e mail ([email protected]).

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