Amazon’s North America fulfillment head is leaving

One of Amazon‘s top operations executives is leaving the e-retailer, the company confirmed.

Melissa Nick, a vice president of North America customer fulfillment, will depart the company June 16, Amazon said. Nick, who joined Amazon in 2014, was responsible for one of Amazon’s largest fulfillment regions, and oversaw almost 300 facilities that process and ship customer orders.

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“We appreciate all of Melissa’s contributions over the past nine years, including building a strong team that will continue supporting our employees throughout the region,” Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait said in a statement. “We wish Melissa well on the next step in her professional journey.”

Nick reported to Yonatan Gal, a vice president in charge of overseeing Amazon’s fulfillment supply chain, equipment maintenance and repairs, as well as fulfillment execution, in North America, according to internal company documents viewed by CNBC. Gal reports to Stefano Perego, vice president of customer fulfillment and global ops services for North America and Europe, who is a direct report of John Felton, Amazon’s head of worldwide operations and a member of CEO Andy Jassy’s S-team, the documents show. The S-team is a tight-knit group of senior executives from almost all areas of Amazon’s business.

Amazon recently revamped its U.S. operations in a bid to speed up deliveries and cut down on costs. The company rapidly expanded its fulfillment and transportation operations during the pandemic, which “ended up substantially changing the nodes and connections” of its network, CEO Andy Jassy said on Amazon’s first-quarter earnings call.

Amazon has now created eight regional hubs in smaller geographic areas to ship products over shorter distances, he said. Traditionally, Amazon operated a national fulfillment network that meant items might be shipped from one warehouse to another on opposite ends of the country if, for example, a product was out of stock.

The move is a part of Jassy’s broader effort to cut down on expenses across the company as Amazon confronts a rough economy and slowing growth across several of its businesses. Amazon has laid off 27,000 employees, initiated a corporate hiring freeze and axed some farther flung initiatives.

Nick is the latest high-profile Amazon executive to depart the company. Chris Vonderhaar, a vice president in charge of Amazon Web Services data centers, is leaving the company, GeekWire reported on Monday. Amazon executives overseeing its Alexa and hardware research and development groups retired last October. Amazon’s workplace health and safety chief also announced her departure last September.

Last July, public policy chief Jay Carney left to join Airbnb, and 23-year Amazon veteran Dave Clark resigned as retail chief a month later.

Amazon said it has hundreds of vice presidents and thousands of directors, and that its business continues to grow. The average tenure for vice presidents is about 10 years, and for senior vice presidents it is much longer, the company said.

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