Seattle — Amazon.com’s chief financial officer Tom Szkutak has set a retirement date of June 2015, when he will be succeeded by the e-tailer’s finance VP Brian Olsavsky.
Szkutak, who also holds the post of senior VP, has been Amazon’s chief financial officer since joining the company in 2002 after two decades at GE.
“The day Tom joined the company was a very lucky one for Amazon’s shareowners and customers,” said founder/CEO Jeff Bezos, who cited the company’s product and geographical expansion during Szkutak’s tenure.
His successor joined Amazon in 2002 from Fisher Scientific International, and will oversee the company’s controller, treasury, investor relations, tax, internal audit and facilities functions, as well as the financial management of its business units.
Olsavsky will report directly to Bezos, and over the next 10 months will continue to work closely with Szkutak as he has for the past 12 years, albeit this time “to conduct a seamless transition,” the company said.
Separately, Amazon said its online home-automation store has nearly doubled its assortment since launching one year ago, and now offers thousands of connected products from brands including Bose, Dropcam, Nest, Philips hue, Quirky+GE, Revolv, SmartThings and Sonos.
“Home automation is on the minds of a lot of customers,” said Amazon home improvement VP Jim Adkins. “Deciding which products best suit their needs can feel overwhelming, so we’ve worked to simplify that process.”
To that end, the home-automation section features buying guides, educational videos and informative product pages to help customers find the right products that will enable them “to monitor their homes while at work or on vacation, manage their energy consumption via their mobile devices, or create the perfect ambiance for a family movie night,” Adkins said.