E-commerce giant Amazon has announced that it appointed Alicia Boler Davis to become first black woman to join the company's senior leadership team.
Alicia Boler Davis, who was hired by Amazon in 2019, was appointed as the company's vice president of global customer fulfillment, effectively becoming the fourth female and first black woman to join the firm's esteemed senior leadership group or "S-team."
Appointments at Amazon
Davis previously worked as an executive at General Motors (GM) and held several roles during her 24-year career at the automobile giant. She was head of global manufacturing and labor relations at GM.
Two other executive appointments were made alongside Davis, namely David Treadwell as vice president of the eCommerce Foundation and John Felton as vice president of global delivery services.
The appointments were made following Amazon's announcement on Friday that Jeff Wilke, chief executive officer (CEO) of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, will be retiring in the first quarter of 2021.
Wilke was previously deemed to be a possible successor to Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. He will be succeeded by Dave Clark, who currently serves as senior vice president of worldwide operations.
Increasing diversity at the top
The addition of Davis to the S-team is part of an initiative by the e-commerce firm toward a bit more diversity at the executive level.
In December, Christine Beauchamp, head of Amazon Fashion, and Colleen Aubrey, Amazon's vice president of advertising, were added to the senior leadership team. Prior to that, Beth Galetti, senior vice president of human resources, was the only woman there.
In 2018, Amazon decided to adopt the NFL's "Rooney Rule" for its board of directors. The rule is a policy that requires teams to consider minority candidates for coaching and operation-level positions.
In 2019, the company named Rosalind Brewer, former Starbucks' chief operating officer, and Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, to its board.
Brewer became the second Black director to serve on the board, following Myrtle Potter, former president and COO of Genentech, who served between 2004 and 2009.
According to company data, Amazon's company workforce as of 2019 already consists of 57% men and 43% women. However, men accounted for almost 73% of all managers compared to 27% women.
Among the managers, almost 60% are white while only 8.3% are black.
Halt of police facial recognition software
Last June, Amazon decided to temporarily stop providing police forces its facial recognition technology for a year, amidst anti-racism protests.
According to the company, it made the decision to implement a one-year moratorium on the use of Amazon Rekognition to give Congress time to “implement appropriate rules” for police use of facial recognition algorithms, which the US government has found are often more likely to misidentify people of color.
In a blog post, Amazon said: “We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge.”
“We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested,” the company explained.
However, the company reiterated that it will continue to allow organizations to use the technology “to help rescue human trafficking victims and reunite missing children with their families.”
These organizations include Thorn, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Marinus Analytics.
