When the Covid pandemic upended Amazon’s operations—and the entire world in 2020—Udit Madan was tasked with a crucial side job: to figure out how to acquire hundreds of thousands of masks from overseas for Amazon warehouse workers, and help get the employee vaccine program off the ground.
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.
That’s one key trait that explains why Amazon CEO Andy Jassy quietly promoted the 38-year-old Madan recently to senior vice president at the company, and into the vaunted Level 11 management tier inside the tech giant. It’s also likely why, according to a source, a busy Jassy personally reached out to check in with Madan in 2022 when worldwide consumer CEO Dave Clark left Amazon—a surprise move that left many of Clark’s direct reports shellshocked. (The source, like others cited in this article, are known to Fortune, but asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution for speaking candidly about the inner workings of Amazon).
Today, working as what is essentially Amazon’s chief supply chain officer and overseeing a global employee base north of 1 million warehouse and logistics employees, Madan is being asked to once again orchestrate order amid chaos, as the whipsaw of the Trump administration’s China tariff dance has threatened to roil Amazon’s movement of goods across the globe. In addition to staff, Madan ultimately oversees a fleet of tens of thousands of trucks, around 100 cargo airplanes, and 2,000-plus warehouses in more than two dozen countries–outfitted with more than 750,000 robots and counting. And when the “everything store’s” shipments of sneakers, sofas, or sundries are jeopardized, it’s ultimately Madan’s problem to solve.
But in a recent interview with Fortune, Madan maintained that he—and his teams—were essentially trained for this day, thanks to the past challenges of having to operate the company’s vast warehouse and transportation network during the cascading waves of the pandemic, and subsequent supply chain and shipping port disruptions. Yes, the tariff mess has required more frequent communication between teams under Madan’s purview but the supply chain leader feels his division is by now built to sustain potential crises like that of the past two months.
“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.
An engineer with a knack for seeing around corners
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.
“[W]hen I got to Amazon, I was given opportunity after opportunity to take on more, and to be able to stretch myself,” Madan once said in an interview. “For every single leader I’ve worked for, it wasn’t about how long I’d been here. It wasn’t that I was 22 years old when I first got into management. None of that mattered. It was all about what I was capable of doing.”
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.”
Over the past six years, Madan has earned even more responsibility. In 2019, he was elevated to a vice president—which is a senior executive role at Amazon while it might be more middle management at other companies. Then, in late 2022, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy added Madan to the “S-team,” which consists of 29 of Amazon’s top leaders, who meet with the CEO as frequently as weekly to consult on everything from crucial launches and pressing crises to discussing long-term strategy and progress on years-long “S-team goals.”
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.
Are you a current Amazon employee with thoughts on this topic or a tip to share? Contact Jason Del Rey at jason.delrey@fortune.com, jasondelrey@protonmail.com, or through messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp at 917-655-4267. You can also contact him on LinkedIn or at @delrey on X, @jdelrey on Threads, and on Bluesky.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
This story originally appeared on Fortune
