Amazon has expanded the responsibilities of senior vice president Amit Agarwal, bringing the company’s global selling partner services business under his remit alongside emerging markets, the company said in a statement.
Agarwal, who was elevated to the role of senior vice president in 2017, is a member of Amazon’s 28-person S-team, the senior leadership group that works closely with chief executive Andy Jassy. The global selling partner services vertical supports and monetises Amazon’s extensive third-party seller ecosystem worldwide.
The expansion of Agarwal’s role follows the appointment of Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of worldwide selling partner services, as a technical adviser to Jassy. Amazon said the technical adviser role is used to help develop future leaders across the organisation. It added that Alex Dunlap, Jassy’s current technical adviser, will move into a new leadership position within the company, details of which will be announced in due course.
Under the expanded mandate, Seattle-based Agarwal will report to Doug Herrington, chief executive of Worldwide Amazon Stores, while continuing to lead Amazon’s international businesses across 10 countries, including India, Brazil, Mexico, the Middle East, South Africa and Australia. Agarwal has been with Amazon for 27 years.
Agarwal said in a social media post that the selling partner services team had made significant progress in enabling sellers to deliver reliable customer experiences and in building a global community comprising millions of sellers. The division is responsible for developing tools for third-party sellers across multiple stages of their engagement with Amazon, including onboarding, payments, compliance, advertising and monetisation.
Agarwal previously served as Amazon’s India head and oversaw the company’s local operations following its market entry in 2013. During his tenure, Amazon competed with domestic rivals such as Flipkart in India’s highly competitive e-commerce sector. Amazon’s India operations are now led by country manager Samir Kumar, who reports to Agarwal.
The leadership changes come amid large-scale job cuts at Amazon. The company has reduced its workforce by more than 30,000 employees over the past four to five months in two rounds of layoffs. In India, Amazon has laid off an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 employees. Amazon has said the reductions form part of Project Dawn, an initiative aimed at reducing bureaucracy, strengthening operations and integrating artificial intelligence-driven efficiencies across the organisation.
