Can’t beat ’em? Join ’em.
Amazon just poached one of Target’s rising stars to run Prime in important new markets
Jamil Ghani, the SVP of strategy and innovation, is heading to Seattle.
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Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.
Amazon has hired Jamil Ghani, Target’s SVP of strategy and innovation, to run the Amazon Prime membership business in international markets, according to a person briefed on the move. Ghani is expected to report to Greg Greeley, Amazon’s VP of Amazon Prime, and be based out of the company’s Seattle headquarters.
At Target, Ghani was an up-and-coming executive tasked with figuring out how the traditional retailer would find new avenues for growth in a world increasingly dominated by Amazon.
He reported to Target Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Casey Carl and lead a “150-person team spanning strategy, innovation, merchandising, business development, and technology that identify and build what’s next for Target,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
A Target spokesman confirmed his departure, but declined further comment.
For Amazon, the growth of Prime in overseas markets is becoming increasingly important, as analysts predict the program’s growth in the U.S. to slow in the next few years. Analysts estimate that nearly half of all American households already subscribe to Prime, the $99-a-year shipping program that also includes perks like video and music streaming in some markets. Amazon Prime members spend more, and buy more often, than non-Prime members.
In the last four months alone, Amazon has announced the launch of Prime in India, where Amazon sees huge potential, as well as China, where Amazon has struggled but which is too big of an e-commerce market to ignore. Prime also recently became available in the Netherlands.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
