Joining Amazon in 2001, Lucy Horn has overseen some of the company’s biggest milestones, including helping to launch the Kindle and Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Amazon Echo in the UK. Now Director for Content, App and Partner Engagement in the UK and Japan, she has built her varied career on Amazon leadership principles and strong choices aligned to her values and strengths- and is passionate about self-ownership to power a successful career in tech.
Why did you choose to come to Amazon?
I was never one of those who aspired to be X, Y or Z early on; I’ve always just looked at the now- and maybe two years ahead of me. After university in 2001, I was considering offers for graduate placement schemes when I got a call asking if I would be interested in meeting with a company called Amazon about a role in Buying and Inventory Management. At the time, Amazon was not the household name it is today ( as online retail was in its infancy), but I went down and met many inspirational people who were high-energy and super smart- and when they said that the role was in books, I was sold because I’m a huge book lover.
What did your boldest career choices teach you?
I was asked to build a Buying and Inventory Supply team in France, the first country outside of America where we were starting a business from the ground up, in the same way that Jeff Bezos did in the US. Everyone thought I was crazy leaving the biggest product line outside the US, managing UK books, to move to a start-up team. But it was an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone, working in a country where I knew nothing about the retailing landscape. So, I implemented structure and process, and when I’d taken it as far as I could, not being a French speaker, I backfilled my role. By then, I’d spent six years in online retail and wanted to explore High Street and Multi-Channel options- and how we could embrace the online retailing space in bricks and mortar. I then moved to be Head of Merchandising for a consumer electronics brand for a couple of years before boomeranging back to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to work as a consultant for retail operations and technology, which ran on the Amazon retail platform at the time. Again, everyone thought I was crazy moving from a Head of Department position to AWS to be an Individual Contributor and doing tech operations in retail with zero experience. I thought I would love going into a consultant role where ownership wasn’t on me- but that I wasn’t probably going to be very good in the role. The reverse was true. Ultimately, I learned that I’m very good at influencing without authority (earning trust of others) and translating business commercial needs into technical requirements and terminology. Still, I struggled not having autonomy because the work was led by the client rather than the customer or me.
Is it important to move beyond the idea of career decisions as ‘right or wrong’?
One of Amazon’s leadership principles is that we “Are Right, A Lot” but not all the time, and it’s okay to fail. Having been educated the Amazon way, I’ve always felt there’s never a wrong decision. If you make a decision or take on a role and it’s not for you, you can always course correct. So many people, particularly women, worry whether something is the ‘right’ decision when considering their next career role. I’ve never thought about it that way, more like, ‘is it going to give me a particular skill set?’ For example, when I took the AWS role, did I love it? No. Did I learn a lot? One hundred per cent.
How do you make authentic choices for your professional development?
Because I’ve never had this overarching career goal, when opportunities arise, I’ve always approached them by asking, ‘What am I good at? What can I bring to the role? Where would I like to lean in and build muscle?’ I’ve taken a spiral staircase through my career rather than a vertical ladder, and I haven’t worried about levelling or the job title; I have just focused on the skills that that role will deliver to me.
How important is the principle of self-ownership for a career in tech?
Self-ownership is embedded in Amazon. I own my career, my development, and the skills I want, and Amazon really supports your development. The feedback that we get from many people who are new to Amazon is that they come in and say, well, where’s the training? What’s my career path? And that’s not the Amazon culture- there is training if you want to specialise in a particular area, but our culture also encourages you to go and find out who you are.
What Amazon leadership principles have influenced your path the most?
I can’t have been at Amazon for 20 years without talking about Customer Obsession because it’s key to Amazon’s success. As customers, we want choice and convenience at a good price – that’s consumer behaviour- so if you focus on that, you’re going to do well. On a personal level, one thing I lean into a lot is ‘Learn and be Curious’, which I’m teaching my kids to do because that approach helps you make better decisions both in business and life. Another is Bias for Action- there are many routes from A to Z, and dealing with ambiguity and not being afraid to make decisions in loosely structured environments is key in any role at Amazon.
What perspective do you need to take for a successful career in tech?
We’re okay to fail when we’re trying and testing new things. There isn’t a standard operating procedure, process to follow, or mechanism to put in place because they’ve never been done before. To work at Amazon, you need to be okay with trying new things, figuring out problems and resolving issues. Our mindset is one of constant change, but not every decision we make will be right or deliver the expected results. We have a mechanism called a Correction of Error (COE) when things do not go as expected, but it’s not about focusing on what went wrong, but rather on the learnings you’ve taken from it.
How have you chosen to approach the lack of gender diversity in the digital world?
Throughout my career, the support and championing I’ve had from managers have always been on par with my male counterparts. Amazon is customer-obsessed, not competitor obsessed, so we don’t worry about what our competition is doing. I’ve also taken that approach into my career; I’m focused on me, my team, my remit, my organisation, my goals and my growth. I don’t worry about what my peers are doing, and I make sure I ask a lot of questions: Why are we doing this? Why is that happening?
How does Amazon culture help women in particular to discover their path?
I think women’s ability to listen actively, take on board feedback, analyse a situation, and say, ‘I got that wrong, but this is what I’ve learned from that,’ is often very well developed. From a growth and development standpoint, being actively encouraged to assess, test, learn and then iterate at Amazon hugely supports women’s progress in their careers and development.
Can asking the right questions create the confidence to excel in a career?
Amazon has a leadership principle which is ‘Think Big’. I’m not a visionary, and in my early years, I spent so much time on this as one of my growth areas. Having just had my 13th annual review that had said, ‘Lucy’s ‘Think Big’ is an area of development’ for the 13th time, I said to my VP ‘ I don’t think I’m ever going to make it to the level of Director’. He replied, ‘No one is excelling at the 16 leadership principles. The question is, what action have you taken around this in support of you and the team? I told him that I was already hiring people who over-indexed on the ‘think big’ leadership principle to mitigate it and ensure my team wasn’t impacted, and he pointed out that was a huge win. That question changed my whole perspective.
What from your experience would you highlight to the next generation of women leaders?
Know who you are and what you bring to the table. Focusing on your strengths drives success far more than leaning into trying to work on your areas for development. In 20 years, my annual review has barely changed in terms of what my strengths and my growth areas are. I’ve made incremental gains as I’ve put myself into different situations, but I am who I am, and really understanding who you are and knowing what you deliver and what you bring to a team and creating your authentic brand is key to anyone’s success.