In an email to AWS employees, Jassy gave details about Selipsky’s transition to CEO and said he brings strong judgment and CEO experience to AWS’ leadership team.
In 2005, Selipsky was one of the first VPs AWS hired and ran the company’s sales, marketing, and support department for 11 years.
Selipsky became the CEO of Tableau in 2016 and ran Tableau for the last 4.5 years. Tableau was eventually acquired by Salesforce and he remained the CEO of Tableau, as well as a member of Salesforce’s Executive Leadership Team.
Jassy added in the email that Selipsky will return to AWS on May 17, and the pair will spend the subsequent several weeks transitioning together before making the change sometime in Q3.
“Whilst at first glance, hiring Selipsky to replace Jassy is a surprising call given that many expected this to be an inside job. But in reality, few AWS execs have the raw CEO experience of running a hyper-growth technology business,” commented Nick McQuire, Chief of Research, Enterprise, CCS Insight.
“Selipsky fits this bill of course but the fact that he has extensive experience of the AWS “secret sauce” culture as well, makes him an obvious bet.
“However, while he has had immense success in running Tableau and he will be super hungry for a new challenge following his induction into Salesforce, running AWS is a different kettle of fish entirely. He will be tested early given the enormous change on the horizon in the cloud computing space.
“One of the big challenges Selipsky faces is how well he manages, along with Jassy, the inevitable bumps in the road facing Amazon with issues like anti-trust, workers’ rights and employee activism on the rise. The good news is, as an AWS alumnus, Selipsky will be considered a safe pair of hands which will reassure customers and help maintain trust in the AWS brand, which is crucial in light of these issues ahead.”
