Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has pulled one of his former executives out of retirement to become the president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, a philanthropic effort to help the planet.
Tom Taylor worked for Amazon for more than two decades, retiring in October 2022 as senior vice president of Amazon Alexa and a member of the company’s senior leadership team (S-team).
“I am thrilled to join the Bezos Earth Fund and lead with the bold mandate to invent our way out of Earth’s environmental challenges with a combination of long-term thinking, technical curiosity, and excellent execution,” Taylor wrote today on LinkedIn. “I am excited to work with Jeff and Lauren [Sanchez Bezos] to implement their vision and grateful to inherit an incredibly capable and mission driven team.”
Bezos launched the fund in February 2020 and issued its first $791 million to 16 environmental groups later that year. The organization set a target of dispersing $10 billion by 2030, and has granted roughly $2.3 billion so far.
Its diverse slate of programming includes focuses on land conservation, planet friendly foods, environmental justice, low-carbon energy and industries, climate tech innovation, monitoring and data, and financial markets.
Taylor’s appointment marks a notable change to the top spot, as the fund’s top executives in the past had largely come from the environmental community.
Andrew Steer, the former head of the World Resources Institute, was the fund’s first CEO and president, resigning his position in February. “Andrew has decades of experience in environmental and climate science as well as economic and social policy in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa,” Bezos said at the time of Steer’s hire in 2021.
A couple of months later, the fund brought on Charlotte Pera, who was previously president and CEO of the ClimateWorks Foundation. She departed the Bezos initiative in January 2024, having served as vice president and deputy CEO.
When he announced his departure earlier this year, Steer said the fund had “assembled some of the leading international experts in our field and built a team of some of the most passionate, imaginative, caring, and joyful staff I have ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Taylor started his Amazon career as senior vice president of seller services, Amazon Payments and Fulfillment by Amazon. Prior to that, he was director of operations at K2 sports and was an engineer at Delphi Automotive Systems.
“After I retired from Amazon, I followed the good advice to consider this as “Quarter 3” of my life and looked for an opportunity that balanced my desire for both adventure and service,” he said on LinkedIn. “Leading the Bezos Earth Fund is this perfect opportunity — a place where I can bring something to the table, learn from some amazing people, and help the planet now and for future generations.”
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