How did you become involved in sales, and what excites you about it?

I've never felt like I’ve had a job in the 37 years I’ve been working. I love what I do. I went to school for accounting and finance, intending to become an FBI agent. But I got hired for a sales internship in New York City and here I am, 37 years later. Eighteen years ago, I moved from New York to Silicon Valley and fell in love with the opportunity to have a front row seat in technology.

What drew you to AWS in particular?

I’m a student of business history and feel fortunate to be part of a paradigm shift, the transformational shift to cloud computing. And I wanted to be part of a company built around innovation and culture and leadership principles. I wanted to be part of that team, part of that story. I would call myself Amazonian now, which means I've embraced the principles—customer obsession, driving value, diving deep.

You’re someone who thinks a lot about leadership.

It’s the key to success. At the end of the day, it's about who you work with. Like many of us, I started out as an individual seller and had aspirations to do more. And I want to make sure when I look across the organization that I’m going to leave the place better than I found it. I am always looking for opportunities to develop the leaders of today for the opportunities of tomorrow. I feel great pride in helping them push boundaries and accomplish their AWS career goals.

How do you do that?

It’s about helping people get the right experiences and skillets. You have to open doors, and identify talent. I am very committed to building a diverse, next-generation leadership team. It’s our time to open those doors. I always like to say, I seek to hire people that I can see myself working for, and that's who I want around me. And I will work for them if that ends up happening.