Amazon VP who was previously Uber's CTO has taken a sudden leave of absence less than 2 years into t
- The VP in charge of Amazon's ecommerce technology services has taken a sudden leave of absence.
- Sukumar Rathnam was Uber's CTO previously.
- Amazon has lost a number of high-profile executives last year.
Sukumar Rathnam, an Amazon VP who was formerly Uber's chief technology officer, is taking a sudden leave of absence, Insider has learned.
Rathnam was most recently VP of eCommerce services at Amazon, overseeing the retail giant's backend technology. It was his second stint at Amazon, after having spent almost 10 years in a retail VP role previously. He was Uber's CTO for a little over a year from 2020 to 2021.
Dave Treadwell, Amazon's SVP of e-commerce foundation, told his team on Friday that Rathnam was taking a leave of absence "effective immediately," according to an internal email obtained by Insider. Ramesh Manne will take over Rathnam's responsibilities, Treadwell said.
"We thank Sukumar for his many significant contributions on raising the bar for talent while driving structure around eCS programs, goals, and metrics over the last 18 months. Sukumar has delivered many results for Amazon in his years here. I am confident that eCS will continue to scale and innovate on behalf of our customers under Ramesh's leadership," Treadwell said in his email.
It's unclear why Rathnam is stepping down, or what his future plans are. Rathnam left his last position at Uber after clashing with its product chief Sundeep Jain, Insider previously reported.
Rathnam's leave adds to the growing number of senior executive departures at Amazon. Some of the most high-profile executives at the company, including retail CEO Dave Clark and communications chief Jay Carney, left last year. Dozens more have left since Andy Jassy replaced Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021. Rathnam did not immediately responded to a request for comment.
In an email to Insider, Amazon's spokesperson, Brad Glasser, said the number of VPs and their tenure at the company have both increased since July 2021.
"We continue to have strong retention and continuity among our senior leaders, and a suggestion otherwise is misleading," Glasser said.
It also takes place while Amazon is dealing with an unusually rocky return-to-office process. Many Amazon employees voiced their opposition to RTO over the past 6 months, both publicly and privately, sparking an internal petition and a public walkout. But Amazon doubled down on its RTO policy, forcing employees to move closer to their assigned offices, or otherwise be forced to take what Amazon calls a "voluntary resignation." Jassy told employees that employees refusing to come into the office at least 3 times a week could get dismissed.
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