Amazon Makes AWS Elemental Leadership Changes

Amazon has made leadership changes at AWS Elemental, announcing that Alex Dunlap will now head things as the general manager of the organization.

The company as forced to give this position to its chief operating office, after the untimely death of Elemental co-founder and CEO Sam Blackman in August. AWS had acquired Elemental in late 2015 to add to bolster its media and streaming offerings.

And AWS Elemental was the side of business that allowed Amazon Web Services to provide multiscreen video solutions, including those used in virtualized deployment models on the cloud.

Amazon had recently announced that it would not be naming a CEO in place of Blackman, who tragically passed away at 41. Instead, the company was looking to elevate someone into a general manager roll at the Portland based company.

In the words of Keith Wymbs, chief marketing officer for AWS Elemental:

“Our focus is on leadership evolution versus succession or replacement. Sam was one of a kind and irreplaceable so we’re continuing down a path that we started at the time of the acquisition by combining management strengths from AWS and AWS Elemental.”

Dunlap has been with AWS since 2007, and joined Elemental in 2016. He had worked closely with the company, and helped with the acquisition.

According to the Elemental leadership page, two other cofounders, Jesse Rosenzweig and Brian Lewis, are still with the organization as chief technology officer and chief architect, respectively. While John Ewert, chief financial officer recently left the company in October.