Amazon Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke on stage at the 2017 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong)

Amazon executive Jeff Wilke, long considered a leading candidate to succeed Jeff Bezos as CEO, is leaving the company.

Wilke, the CEO of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer business, will step down in the first quarter of next year, Amazon announced in an SEC filing on Friday, describing his departure as a retirement. He’ll be replaced by Dave Clark, currently senior vice president of worldwide operations.

“I don’t have a new job, and am as happy with and proud of Amazon as ever,” Wilke said in an internal memo to the company’s worldwide consumer employees on Friday morning. “So why leave?  It’s just time. Time for Dave Clark to step in and lead the organization as CEO Worldwide Consumer. …  Time for me to take time to explore personal interests that have taken a back seat for over two decades.”

Wilke, who joined Amazon in 1999, has led its consumer business through a period of unprecedented growth — stretching well beyond its origins in e-commerce and books to become a universal shopping destination. Amazon built physical retail stores, rolled out new devices, technologies and media, and expanded its fulfillment and delivery systems to reach customers around the world. The broader company has grown from 5,000 people to 1 million people worldwide during his tenure.

In his own memo to employees, Bezos called Wilke “simply one of those people without whom Amazon would be completely unrecognizable.”

“Since Jeff joined the company, I have been lucky enough to have him as my tutor,” Bezos wrote. “I’ve learned so much from him, and I’m not the only one. He’s been an incredible teacher to all of us. That form of leadership is so leveraged. When you see us taking care of customers, you can thank Jeff for it. And there’s this important point: in tough moments and good ones, he’s been just plain fun to work with. Never underestimate the importance of that. It makes a difference.”

Wilke, 53, took over Amazon’s North American consumer business in 2007 and was named CEO of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer business in 2016. He oversees businesses that generated more than $200 billion in net sales in 2019, representing nearly 90% of Amazon’s overall net sales last year.

He grew up in Pittsburgh, studied chemical engineering at Princeton University, and did his graduate work in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations program. His early operational roles in pharmaceuticals, chemicals and electronics gave him a unique perspective as he joined Amazon as Vice President and General Manager of Operations in September 1999, at the peak of the dot-com bubble.

During his Amazon tenure, Wilke became known for wearing flannel shirts during the fourth quarter of every year, in an effort to keep the company’s operations workers top of mind for the executive and headquarters teams. The subject line on Wilke’s Friday memo was, “Hanging up the flannel.” He wrote, “The flannel gave me a chance to talk about our operations and remind everyone of how dedicated and customer-focused our colleagues in the field were, too.”

Amazon's Dave Clark
Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, shows off the company’s first branded airplane. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota)

Clark also joined Amazon in 1999. He became senior vice president of worldwide operations in 2013, overseeing the huge growth of Amazon’s sprawling logistics and delivery teams, including its expansion into its own delivery service.

“Dave thinks and leads boldly,” wrote Wilke in his memo. “He’s the Big Thinking energy behind the scale of Amazon Robotics, our Prime Air fleet, and AMZL deliveries. In the last two years, we moved Prime, Marketing, and the Stores organizations to Dave, giving him a chance to broaden his leadership beyond operations.  Dave is now ready to lead WW Consumer, and I’ll be proud to turn it over to him early next year.”

Clark, 47, previously held positions including vice president of global customer fulfillment, vice president of North America operations, and general manager of a fulfillment center.

Operations and logistics run deep in Clark’s DNA, who learned to drive a forklift at age 12 while working for his family business in a small warehouse. He worked shifts at Publix Supermarket and Service Merchandise in high school.

Clark graduated from Auburn University with a music education degree. He joined Amazon one day after earning his MBA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1999.

“Our MBA recruiting team brought him on board months before I joined,” Wilke wrote in his memo. “But soon after my arrival at Amazon, I knew he was special. He possessed a unique mix of raw intellect, systems thinking, sharp wit, and tons of leadership courage.”

As part of the changes, Amazon is adding three additional executives to its “S-team,” the inner circle of senior leaders who run the company: Alicia Boler Davis, a 25-year General Motors veteran who joined Amazon last year, vice president of Global Customer Fulfillment; John Felton, a longtime Amazon executive, vice president of Global Delivery Services; and Dave Treadwell, a former Microsoft executive who joined Amazon in 2016, vice president of eCommerce Foundation.

Editor’s Note: Jeff Wilke’s age corrected since original post.

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