Gabriella Sears’ Post

Leadership is a lot about taking care of each other. Since I started my AWS journey 12 month ago - after 14 years with Amazon - I took over a new team and had to learn a new business from scratch. Building trustful relationships takes time and I have invested many hours every week to listen and learn. Here my key takeaways: 👂If you listen, you will gain insights and build relationships 🙏These relationships build trust 🌱 Trust and psycological safety are key elements for high performing teams Lastly, we need a commen purpose, something that we all care about as a group and that will ultimatekly make teams move forward. Last week during my team's offsite we came together as a team and we developed that common purpose: RUN BETTER. TOGETHER. I truely believe this will help us perform better going forward. The confidence I have comes from my experience leading other teams. Last week I received the below note out of the blue via our internal messanger. This is what made my day and why I love working with people (thank you Stefan-Daniel Agape for allowing me to post it here): "Greetings Florian. I hope it is appropriate to write you via chime like this. Just wanted to thank you for believing in WorkerHero and Richard Fischer's vision. You made that company exist and in turn that company offered me a chance to develop and continue my career in Germany. First thing that I did when I returned at Amazon was to call and thank Richard Fischer for everything that I learned from him. With that said I also wanted to thank you for making Richard's dream a reality which in turn helped so many like me to turn their own dreams in a reality." I want to close with a quote that our coach Amir Klaus send to me from Roosevelt that reflect the way I work: „People don‘t care how much you know until they know how much you care.“ What motivates you and how do you create trust?

Thanks again to Transportation, Shipping, & Logistics at Amazon for including Tevva's battery electric solution for middle-mile, in the 3rd edition of their sustainability event for carriers. As part of the event, Amazon spoke about their detailed study and development of #CHALET - Charging Location for Electric Trucks - which they have generously now made an open-source software. 👊 It will help private industry, governments, electricity network operators, and local authorities determine where electric charging points for heavy-goods vehicles should be built. Just one more example of how Amazon are helping accelerate the pace of logistics decarbonisation in Europe. #sustainability #carbonreduction #transportation #decarbonisation Click on the links included in the post below to find out more.

Amazon-to-Google-to-Amazon #a2g2a thought of the day: Company meetings. Yesterday I attended the Amazon Company Meeting. My first one was 15 years ago. I attended many Company Meetings before, while at Microsoft. Back in the nineties, they would bus tens of thousands of microsofties across Lake Washington and we would descend upon the Kingdome (a stadium long defunct) to lovingly hear Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Steve put on quite a show. He was sweaty, agitated, and passionately scream about how we needed to destroy the competition. “We gotta destroy Sun!”, he’d yell. Woooohoooo, we would respond. “We gotta destroy Netscape!”, he’d continue. Woooohoooo! I was young, dumb and full of testosterone, so his competitive nature resonated with me. Steve always ended with a standing ovation.   And so in 2009, I curiously joined my first Amazon Company Meeting, half-expecting Jeff Bezos to get up there all sweaty and scream at me. Instead, Jeff was down to earth, white shirt, jeans, sneakers, took questions from the audience candidly, and spoke about “the customer” a lot. I turned to the guy next to me. “When is he going to talk about who we need to destroy?” I asked impatiently. I learned that day Amazon Works Backwards from the Customer, not Competitors.   Throughout the years I never once missed an Amazon Company Meeting. The most memorable was 2013 when Jeff gave me a Just Do It Award in front of thousands of amazonians, and I got to hang out backstage with him. It was only a few minutes but the 1:1 with Jeff made a huge impact to my entire career. Still got that shoe.   And so in 2020, when I joined Google, I was equally curious about the Company Meetings, so I attended all of them as well. Maybe it’s an unfair comparison because Google today isn’t Google 20 years ago or even 10 years ago, and you can’t have the same level of candor when 120k engineers are listening to every word you say (and a few of those are leaking every single word you say which then affects your stock price…), but the entire thing felt rehearsed and inauthentic. I found Sundar to be a thoughtful and calm leader, but also not relatable, and lacking pizzazz, conviction and courage. He was cautious and reserved. I didn’t learn anything from him. I did not feel inspired by a vision. The VPs that got up on stage were very rehearsed, inauthentic and peppered their speeches with weasel words and platitudes. My low point was the All-Hands after the 12k-people layoffs. Sundar and Ruth (Porat) botched the entire thing. I’ve literally never seen two leaders more out of touch with the people they were supposed to be leading in my entire life. I loved the googlers I worked with, but not senior leaders.   Yesterday I was wondering: Would Amazon be what I remembered? The all-hands felt surprisingly familiar. Sure, it was a bit more polished, and if I was presenting to 100k people live I’d probably rehearse a few times. But it was quirky, peculiar, and still very amazonian at its core.

Landing today in Seattle for the #AmazonAccelerate (Sell on Amazon) conference this week! Here are my top tips for first-time attendees: 1. Schedule time with Amazon Employees at the Seller Cafe if you can. 2. Attend as many breakout tracks that you can. Amazon employees and brands alike will be sharing great insight and news from their respective departments. It provides insight on the year to come for the platform! 3. Speak to the services at partner connect. Many companies will be providing offers and sharing news of new products and benefits. Stay in the know and take advantage! 4. Attend the Block Party! Best way to network and experience Seattle at the Space Needle! 5. Speak to as many people as possible! Goes without saying at a conference! You will meet some of the most amazing people in the most unlikely of places…take advantage! Come say hi to me and my team at booth 425 or let me know how we can connect if you’re in town this week! #AmazonAccelerate2023

We're counting down the days to attend Amazon Accelerate 2023 in Seattle! Meet us there at booth #160 to learn how our AI-powered technology can support your business growth. See you in Seattle! #Quartile #AmazonAccelerate #AmazonAds #AmazonAdsPartner 

Amazon Accelerate was the highlight of our year! We loved meeting so many of you and sharing the latest news on offerings to help grow your #business. Here are the top five announcements from the conference. We can’t wait to see you again in 2024! #amazonseller #AmazonAccelerate

Earlier this month a number of our leaders attended the annual Amazon Accelerate conference in Seattle.  On the first day, we were hosted by our Canadian team and given a tour of the Amazon headquarters The Spheres. The following days we attended insightful sessions at the conference and also had productive meetings with many Amazonians and subject matter experts from a variety of different functions. We wish to thank them all for their time and for sharing their expertise with us.  We look forward to seeing you all next year! #amazonaccelerate #Amazonians #stoppingpowersimplified Ashley Yang Jay Z. Michael Tsimidis Vaibhav Mummalaneni Christie Wong Eugene Teh Fahad Bin Faruque Nimit Narula Gabriela B. Namika Collard Raymond Grant Lawrence L. Cole, II Bret Darby Amin Rahim Amazon Amazon Ads

A successful Amazon Accelerate with Matthew Koski Taylar Allan and Samantha Evans We kicked off the week with a fabulous dinner at Canlis with 24 professionals in the Amazon space. Matthew Koski and I had the pleasure of doing the 5k with Jeffrey Cohen. I had the absolute joy of meeting Scott Ohsman and Mark Power in person for the first time. And of course catching up with Shannon Roddy Jason Boyce Will Haire Ryan Kirkland and so many more! I can’t wait to test the new tools and programs announced. Check out Envision Horizons’ recap to get the download! #amazonaccelerate #amazon

After the explosive reaction to 🌶️  AMZ Innovate takes (+35K impressions), it’s clear we’ve only scratched the surface. So, what’s next? We’re taking this discussion LIVE! 🔥 Topic: “The State of Amazon Selling” 📅 Mark Your Calendars: November 21 at 4:00 PM EST 🌟 Special Guest: The one and only Mina Elias, an industry vet. It’s a jungle out there If you’re concerned about it - I’d encourage you to show up. We’re not just rehashing the bullet points – we’re expanding, exploring, and exploding them with insights. Expect raw, unfiltered conversation that cuts through the noise. Spaces are limited, and the buzz is building. Secure your spot and be part of the conversation that’s shaping the future of Amazon selling. 🔗 Link is in the comments. There will be NO replay so see you on Nov 21st! #AmazonUncovered #AmazonFBA #AmazonPPC

What's it like working at Amazon, on the inside? And how does it carry over into the rest of your life? Thanks for the insights Evan