At the time, Madan was a fast-rising Amazon vice president in his early 30s—likely one of the youngest out of hundreds with that same title inside the tech giant. But still he had no specific experience in what he was being tasked with, especially amid a level of chaos he had not experienced before.
But as Amazon colleagues have learned, Madan has proven to be an adeptly fast learner. He figured it out.
“The last five years as a team helped us build a lot of resilience in how we operate,” Madan told Fortune in an interview, “and also prompted us to invest in building more flexibility in our logistics network to handle a bit more inherent variability that we’re seeing happen quite frequently.”
Madan was referencing new trucking and warehousing services that Amazon has launched in recent years. One is Amazon Warehouse and Distribution—or AWD—which allows Amazon vendors and sellers to store large amounts of inventory in dedicated Amazon warehouses for a fee, and have the tech giant then distribute smaller allotments of merchandise to various fulfillment centers as customer demand for the item picks up. (The service has served as a welcome alternative for some merchants that sell on Amazon and don’t want to run their own warehouses or hire a third-party logistics business to run one for them. But AWD has also come under fire from some sellers who felt pressured into using it simply to avoid new Amazon fees they’d otherwise have to pay, only to be disappointed by how it ran during last holiday season.)
Both the new trucking and warehousing services have been helpful to Amazon as the company assisted some vendors and sellers with rushing more inventory into the U.S. before some of the new tariffs hit, Madan said.
Madan grew up in Hyderabad, India, before attending high school in New Delhi, and finally moving to the US to attend the University of Texas at Austin. Despite at one point considering becoming a doctor, and later flirting with the idea of an investment banking career, Madan joined Amazon as a software engineer in 2008 after graduating with degrees in computer science and economics. By 22, he had been promoted to manager and would soon go on to run large technology organizations for Amazon’s new “last mile” delivery businesses—Amazon Flex, which are deliveries performed by everyday gig workers, and eventually the new Delivery Service Provider (DSP) network, comprised of small and mid-sized delivery businesses often dedicated exclusively to deliver Amazon packages.
One former colleague of Madan’s said he stood out among peers for his ability to go both deep into the details, while also widening his viewpoint to understand more holistic strategies and business impacts – a hallmark of many successful top Amazon leaders.
“It was very impressive to me that someone with a core engineering background was able to dig into financial analysis,” the source said, “but also look around corners and have a gut sense of where the competitive landscape was going.”
By 2017, he would be tapped for a coveted role known as a technical advisor or “shadow”—basically a chief of staff—for Amazon’s then head of worldwide supply chain operations, Dave Clark. Several former executives who spoke to Fortune pointed to this role as an inflection point for Madan. Under Clark, Madan became “more of a watcher and deep thinker” than his typical blunt-speaking self, according to a former Amazon vice president who regularly interacted with Madan during that time.
Another former leader, said after a year learning under Clark, Madan “popped out a totally different executive.”
“He absorbed every second of Dave’s mentorship and leadership,” the former Amazon exec said.
While Madan would not single out that one-year “shadow” role as more crucial than others in his development as a leader at Amazon, he did tell Fortune that it provided a “more concentrated” period of time “where you get to both have much more diverse perspectives to inform you and it gives you an opportunity to interface with a far more varied set of really strong individuals.”
Earlier this year, Madan was promoted again, to senior vice president—one of only 18 at the company. When it was announced internally, Madan said he told his team it is an acknowledgement of all of their work to serve customers and better the business, whether by improving delivery speeds or expanding the company’s reach to customers living in more rural areas.
Madan, dressed casually in a button-down shirt, came across as personable but guarded, in a video interview with Fortune.
If there’s an area where some former senior colleagues hope Madan has improved, it’s his EQ or “emotional intelligence.” While former colleagues attest that Madan was far from a loose cannon or a screamer as a manager, they recalled him sometimes struggling to connect with staff on a personal level. In one instance in the late 2010s, following his “shadow” role, he took over a new delivery team early in the new year. The team, according to a former top executive, was coming off of a mostly successful holiday season and Madan could have ingratiated himself with his new direct reports by at least acknowledging that success. Instead, he went in the other direction, blindsiding them with a litany of failings he believed they were responsible for.
That’s not necessarily uncommon at Amazon—many company leaders rise toward the top because of their IQ more than their EQ, former insiders say. Then, when they begin overseeing teams of thousands or hundreds of thousands, developing better EQ is stressed more.
As for Madan himself, the executive said he’s still learning across many areas, “and I think that’s going to be true for a very long time.”
But, he added, “I hope across almost every dimension [that] I am at least a little bit better than I was when I started here.”
With a global trade war still underway, he should have plenty of opportunities to show his progress.
