Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s Chief of Consumer, to Retire Next Yr

SEATTLE — Jeff Wilke, the chief government of Amazon’s huge shopper enterprise, stated on Friday that he prepared to retire early up coming calendar year immediately after more than two decades with the organization, in a uncommon switching of the guard at the leading of the e-commerce giant.

Mr. Wilke, 53, has been one of two chiefs of certain enterprises at Amazon who report to Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and main government. (The other main of a enterprise is Andy Jassy, who leads Amazon’s cloud computing business enterprise.) Mr. Wilke is the most senior govt to depart Amazon amid a wave of departures from Mr. Bezos’s leadership staff in modern yrs, with the males who developed the enterprise retiring or turning to other ventures.

In an email to staff, Mr. Wilke wrote, “So why depart? It is just time.” He claimed he did not have a different career lined up and has been “as satisfied with and happy of Amazon as at any time.” He added that he was completely ready to have “time to check out personal passions that have taken a back seat for over two many years.”

Mr. Bezos, also in an email to the business, explained Mr. Wilke “is only one particular of all those people today with no whom Amazon would be absolutely unrecognizable.”

Dave Clark, the senior vice president who has run Amazon’s operations, which include its logistics and provide chain, will just take around Mr. Wilke’s position of chief govt of the client business.

Amazon did not quickly have an official remark and Mr. Wilke did not immediately react to a ask for for remark.

Mr. Wilke joined Amazon in 1999 in operations, at some point turning out to be an govt in the broader retail organization. In 2016, Mr. Bezos named him chief government of the customer business enterprise, a new function, at the exact same time he created Mr. Jassy chief government of Amazon’s cloud computing enterprise.

Mr. Clark has been ascendant in recent decades as Amazon has invested billions of dollars in expanding its operations, setting up hundreds of warehouses as perfectly as its own community of trucks and previous-mile shipping and delivery.

This is a developing tale. Check back again for updates.