Friday, December 27, 2024

Amazon’s Amit Agarwal gets a promotion

Tuesday, March 1, 2022, 0:30
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Bengaluru: Amazon India’s country head Amit Agarwal has been given additional charge of emerging markets, according to an internal communication which ET has reviewed.Manish Tiwary, vice-president of the web retailer’s consumer business, will oversee day-to-day functions, but Agarwal will continue to head the India business.“This is a major step up for Amit (Agarwal). Getting all these markets under him really adds meat to his role,” said an Amazon insider.Amazon India confirmed the development to ET.The email detailing their respective roles was sent by Russell Grandinetti, senior vice president of international consumer, Amazon.“…Amit Agarwal will be taking on an expanded role leading International consumer’s emerging markets team and businesses, including and in addition to his India role effectively, February 1. Sarah Jane Gunter, VP Latin America, and Samir Kumar, VP, Amazon Exports and Expansion, and their teams will move to report to Amit and Amit will continue reporting to me…” Grandinetti said in the email.Replying to ET’s query, Amazon said in a statement that Agarwal would lead its presence in emerging markets in addition to his current role, as SVP India and Emerging Markets. “Manish Tiwary will take on the role of country manager for our consumer business in India and he will continue to report to Amit…,” the company added.Tiwary will also be responsible for Amazon Business, its business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform which sells goods to small and medium enterprises, said an Amazon executive.Amazon Prime Video and other properties like Amazon Web Services (AWS) will not report to Tiwary.The portfolio rejig has come at a time when the Jeff Bezos-founded company is fighting a legal battle with Reliance Industries to stop the Mumbai-based conglomerate from acquiring Kishore Biyani’s Future Group. Amazon is also going through a transition as it looks to acquire 100% stake in the biggest seller on its marketplace, Cloudtail. In December, Catamaran, the investment office of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy and Amazon announced the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval. Amazon had to reduce its stake from 49% to 24% in Cloudtail’s parent Prione Business Services in 2019 to comply with the new foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations for ecommerce.Catamaran owns 76% in Cloudtail.Tiwary, a former Unilever executive, joined Amazon India in May 2016.89906070A person familiar with the development told ET that there were indications since November that Tiwary would be elevated, as he had slowly started taking on more responsibilities related to Amazon’s daily operations.After heading Unilever’s business in the Gulf region, Tiwary started off by leading category management at Amazon and on-boarding many brands, like Samsung and OnePlus.He was responsible for steering the entire category management portfolio including Amazon’s expansion into new categories, and brand partnerships across verticals. ET reported in September 2020 that Tiwary would take up the seller services portfolio from Gopal Pillai, who moved to the US after a five-year stint in India.The seller services business involves running the entire marketplace, including seller enablement on the marketplace and all the programmes that Amazon runs to on-board small and medium businesses.

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