We are pleased to announce today that Doug Gurr has been named Amazon’s new UK Country Manager. Doug is currently the Country Manager of our business in China, a role he’s had for the past two years. He first joined Amazon in the UK in 2011 as Vice President of our Hardlines division, which covers products like lawn & garden and toys. Doug will take up his new role in late May, coinciding with the departure of Christopher North, while continuing to support the transition of his current responsibilities to his successor in China.
I’m delighted to be returning to Amazon in the UK to lead our continued investment in Britain and innovation on behalf of customers, small businesses, authors and other content creators.
Doug returns to the UK at a time of rapid expansion. In the last 12 months, we have introduced many new services for customers, including Prime Now, Prime Same-Day and Amazon Pantry. And there’s more to come.
With this rapid expansion comes heavy investments in our infrastructure and workforce. This year in the UK we plan to create over 2,500 new permanent jobs, bringing the total number of permanent full-time employees across Britain to more than 14,500 by the end of 2016. We are expanding our teams across the country, including at our head office in London; our three research and development centres in Cambridge, Edinburgh and London; our customer service centre in Edinburgh and our 10 fulfilment centres across England, Scotland and Wales. We are also hiring to support our new Amazon Web Services (AWS) UK data centre region announced last year, scheduled to launch by early 2017.
Talking about his new role, Doug said: "I’m delighted to be returning to Amazon in the UK to lead our continued investment in Britain and innovation on behalf of customers, small businesses, authors and other content creators.”
Xavier Garambois, Vice President, EU Retail, Amazon, said: “Doug has a deep knowledge of Amazon’s business and is ideally placed to provide both continuity and progression in the UK as we continue to focus on providing our customers with ever better selection, value and convenience.”
Before joining Amazon, Doug was a senior executive at Asda, and prior to that was CEO of Blueheath Holdings, a company he founded and saw through to its listing on London’s AIM market. He was previously a partner at McKinsey & Co. Doug has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Theoretical Computing from the University of Edinburgh.
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