Ahead in the Cloud: My New Book on the Future of Enterprise IT (and My New Role)

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” — John Pierpont “J.P.” Morgan

Today I’m excited to make two announcements:

First, my new book, Ahead in the Cloud, became available last week.

Over the last three and a half years as the Global Head of Enterprise Strategy for AWS I’ve had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of the world’s largest companies about the role cloud is and will play in their long-term IT strategies. I’ve learned a lot about what makes cloud hard for large companies (hint: it’s rarely about the technology), and have compiled these learnings across a number of blog posts.

Over the last few months, I’ve combined these posts with some new content from customers, myself, and other AWS leaders (including our CEO and founder, Andy Jassy) into a book called “Ahead in the Cloud: Navigating the Future of Enterprise IT”. You can find it on amazon.com here. (Kindle version should be available on/around April 9th).

I hope that any leader contemplating change management in their organization will find this book useful, and I look forward for your feedback!

Second, I’m moving on to build something new at AWS, and Philip Potloff will take the reins of Enterprise Strategy at AWS.

There are many reasons why I love working at Amazon, but near the top has got to be our appetite to pioneer and invent. Last month I was given a special opportunity and have become the GM of something new for AWS. I’m looking forward to sharing this with you all when the time is right!

Yet another reason I love working at Amazon is all the amazing people I get to learn from every day. Everyone brings a unique superpower that helps our customers innovate faster, makes us more efficient, invents new ideas, and so on. One of the people I’ve learned the most from over the last several years — both as a customer and a colleague — is Philip Potloff. This is why I’m proud to announce that as I move in to my new role, we’ve asked Philip to lead the Enterprise Strategy team for AWS and take it to the next level.

I’m not going far, and I’ll still be around to meet with customers, discuss (and sign, if you want to catch me at an event) my book, and occasionally post on the enterprise blog.

So, please give us feedback on Ahead in the Cloud, and help me congratulate Philip as the new Head of Enterprise Strategy for AWS!

Keep building,
-Stephen
@stephenorban
Read my book