Sarah Rhoads, who previously led Amazon’s aviation operations as vice president of Amazon Global Air, was promoted to lead the Worldwide Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) and Global Operations Learning and Development (GOLD) organizations.
Rhoads joined Amazon more than a decade ago after an 11-year career with the U.S. Navy. She started as an operations manager and in 2019 became VP of Amazon Global Air, which manages the company’s fleet of more than 110 aircraft operating out of more than 70 airports worldwide.
Rhoads will report to John Felton, SVP of Worldwide Operations.
“Safety is paramount in every aspect of aerospace and other industries look to aviation for best practices in safety, and Sarah’s background as a decorated military pilot and her success leading Amazon Global Air positions her as the ideal leader to assume this critical role,” Felton wrote in an email provided by Amazon announcing Rhoads’ promotion.
Raoul Sreenivasan, who joined Amazon in 2016 and is director of Amazon Global Air, will take over most of Rhoads’ Amazon Air responsibilities, Felton said.
Amazon’s workplace safety conditions have come under regulatory scrutiny in recent years. According to Amazon’s latest safety report, the company said it improved its recordable incident rate by 11% from 2021 to 2022, and reduced its lost time incident rate by 14%.
Other key personnel changes in the Pacific Northwest tech industry:
- Cloud security giant Zscaler hired longtime Seattle tech vet Syam Nair as its new CTO. Nair was most recently an executive vice president at Salesforce and spent more than 14 years at Microsoft.
- Seattle financial services company Remitly named Gail Miller as chief accounting officer. Miler previously held the same role at Shift4 Payments.
- Seattle-based venture capital firm Graham & Walker promoted Divya Kakkad to partner. Kakkad joined the firm, previously known as Female Founders Alliance, in 2019 after working as a senior brand manager at Starbucks.
- Real estate tech startup Poplar Homes named former Vacasa exec Scott Breon as president.
