covey
Joy Covey

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos was among those who spoke Saturday at a memorial service for Joy Covey, the former Amazon.com chief financial officer who was killed in a bicycling accident in Silicon Valley at the age of 50 in September.

The service, which was held at the Stanford Memorial Church on the campus of Stanford University, also included remarks by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker as well as author Bruce Feiler.

Bezos recalled the brilliance of Covey, which he said was coupled with an energy in her eyes that were “always wide, soaking up the world around her.”

“Joy was more substance over optics,” said Bezos, according to a report on the service from Fortune’s JP Mangalindan. “She was a long-term thinker.”

Covey, who served as Amazon.com’s first chief financial officer from 1996 to 2000, most recently was treasurer of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In an interview with GeekWire in September, Shel Kaphan, who was Amazon.com’s first employee, remembered Covey as “insightful, energetic and cheerful.”

“At work, among other things, she drove the IPO process and also one of the debt offerings and did them with a tremendous amount of skill, energy, and attention to detail,” recalled Kaphan.  ”She was also able to get Bezos to agree to things that needed doing that others (including me) tried and failed to do.”

More on the memorial service from Fortune here.

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