Amazon has named the replacement for one of its top lieutenants.

Helen H. Richardson | Getty Images via Business Insider

CEO Andy Jassy announced Tuesday that Doug Herrington will become the CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores business, replacing the recently departed Dave Clark. Clark had served in the role — previously called CEO of Worldwide Consumer — until he resigned on June 3.

Jassy wrote in an email to employees that Herrington has been with Amazon for 17 years and “is a builder of great teams.”

“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,” Jassy wrote.

Herrington now oversees the divisions Amazon customers interact with most, including physical stores, online retail, and delivery operations.

Herrington steps into a role that changed hands multiple times over the past few years. Clark, who joined Amazon in 1999, had only assumed the consumer CEO role in January 2021 after another longtime exec, Jeff Wilke, stepped down.

But Clark’s tenure was marred by multiple missteps, including overexpansion and over-staffing at Amazon fulfillment centers, mounting costs, and failing to stop union progress, current and former employees recently told Insider. Those company insiders also said that Clark’s relationship with Jassy had become tense due to what they described as Jassy’s penchant for micro-managing, as well as his bias toward AWS, the division he used to lead.

With Herrington’s appointment to Clark’s former role, he will report directly to Jassy and become one of Amazon’s most powerful executives.

“This is a very strong and experienced leadership team,” Jassy wrote in the email. “I remain very optimistic about our Stores business, and believe we’re still in the early days of what’s possible.”

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