What you need to know
- Microsoft has reportedly hired former Amazon cloud executive Charlie Bell.
- Bell was a senior vice president over Amazon's AWS for 15 years.
- Microsoft will bring Bell on as a corporate vice president at the company.
Former Amazon cloud executive Charlie Bell will join Microsoft as a corporate vice president, according to a report by CNBC. Bell was an "S-team" executive (member of the senior leadership team) during his time at Amazon, and recently left the company after 23 years. He led the general management of AWS for 15 years.
Microsoft's Azure competes with Amazon's AWS, but Bell's move won't see him directly compete with his old division, at least immediately. According to a Microsoft corporate directory seen by CNBC, Bell is under the organization of Kathleen Hogan, who is an executive vice president and Microsoft's chief human resources officer. There's a chance that Bell will move to another location inside of Microsoft in the future.
After Amazon promoted Andy Jassy from his role leading AWS to company CEO, many believed that Bell was next in line to head up AWS. That was not the case, however, as Bell left Amazon and has now reportedly signed on with one of its biggest rivals.
Bell did not respond to CNBC with a comment regarding the move. Microsoft declined to comment on Bell's status.
Microsoft hiring Bell will be viewed as a major addition for the company. AWS grew tremendously during Bell's tenure at Amazon.
"Charlie grew the AWS business from initial S3 and EC2 offerings to, what is today, the broadest cloud services offering in the world with a trailing twelve-month revenue run-rate in excess of $50B US," says Bell's LinkedIn profile. "He continues to lead the general management of AWS services, including product definition, pricing, P&Ls, software development, and service operations."
He'll have to update his profile soon. If he needs any help, he can walk down the hall to his new colleagues at Microsoft-owned LinkedIn.
