As our appetite for streaming entertainment continues to grow, Emily Aldis, Director of Worldwide Business Development for Amazon Prime Video, is at the forefront of the company’s expansion into new territories. We talked to her about her long tenure at Amazon, the importance of relationships to help challenge bias, and why taking time out can be the most ambitious thing you can do for your career.
What is your current role at Amazon?
I’ve been at Amazon now for 12 years, making me a company veteran. I’ve worked in third-party device distribution for Prime Video for five years now, and my team’s job is to ensure that the Prime Video service is available on set-top box devices in living rooms worldwide. We own the business deals behind those partnerships and work to grow them. I’ve seen so many changes in the world of streaming and on-demand entertainment in a relatively short time. The biggest challenge providers now have is balancing content and quality with quantity and ‘anywhere accessibility’. Our appetite as an audience for content is stronger than ever, though—we want and expect all these amazing entertainment choices in one place at a good price. The future is how we, as streaming services, get better at providing that.
What is the best career decision you’ve made and why?
My degree was in Japanese language, and I started my career in product and business planning for Japanese consumer electronic companies based in the UK while travelling to head offices in Japan. It was an incredible experience, but a tough environment working all hours of the day and weekends, and after 12 years, I realised it was no longer sustainable for me in terms of my wellbeing or what I wanted. I didn’t have time to think about my options with such an intense work situation, so I decided to take a career break. It was terrifying jumping off the ladder that I’d worked so hard to climb, but my husband and I rented our house out and went off to see the world. When I returned, I spent time working with him on his business before having my daughter.
All in all, I took three years out of my career as a conscious and intentional decision, which was the most powerful and important one I’ve made. That decision led me to Amazon—and it was liberating and taught me that you need to think beyond your boundaries and challenge yourself. Since then, I’ve never been afraid to take big jumps and make big decisions.
How did you translate a career break into a new direction?
The three-year hiatus did set me behind in my career, and when I came to Amazon in 2011, I definitely started lower down the ladder than I would have if I hadn’t taken that time out. For me, it was worth it to keep me driven in my career overall. I joined Amazon as a merchant product manager, responsible for managing the independent electronics retailers selling on Amazon marketplace as third-party sellers. When I applied, I didn’t think they would take me because the role wasn’t one I’d ever done before. But Amazon’s focus was more on how I think and work, and saw an opportunity to transfer my experiences and skills within the organisation. In many ways, it felt like I was starting again; I’d even forgotten how to use Excel! However, having been away from the corporate world for so long, the most challenging thing was convincing myself- and thinking I needed to convince others- that I was an expert in the area and presenting myself as the legitimate owner of my role. I felt like I had to work three times as hard as everyone else to show the conviction that I knew my stuff when presenting and projecting to others. I spent a lot of time researching and diving into industry trends and product specs. At Amazon, though, we have to back up everything with data and deep thinking – so it was good practice early on.
What’s the secret to your longevity at Amazon?
In 12 years, I haven’t been working in the same job, and it hasn’t felt like I have been working for the same company. Because Amazon has such a breadth of businesses globally and with proponents of the transferability of people grounded in its hiring and development principles, there is a huge range of opportunities both in roles and business areas. I started in the retail business as a product manager. I now lead a global business development team for Prime Video. My journey through Amazon has helped shape my direction in knowing what I want to do and what I’m good at. I also spent two years working for Amazon in Japan. I was able to take my family with me and it was one of the best experiences of my life.
Have you encountered any challenges as a woman building a career in tech and how have you dealt with these?
In the early part of my career, I worked for companies where gender equality was not high on the agenda—in Japan, it’s extraordinarily challenging. I was obviously never going to be a Japanese man (!); I was always going to stand apart as a Western woman, and therefore, I had to have a strategy to cope and get things done. I’ve always believed in the power of building trust and relationships, so my approach was that while I may or may not fit in, I could use my uniqueness to give a different perspective. I tried to put myself in the right situations to deliver that perspective, but that was sometimes hard to judge, and I often made errors around speaking up at the right time or with the right audience. In the end, I tried not to see my situation as negative. I still had to deliver on my targets. So, I decided I would be me and focus on building relationships rather than whether I fit into the patriarchal working culture.
How can business culture support more women to progress and grow careers in tech?
Everyone, regardless of gender, needs to advocate for women. It shouldn’t be just up to women to promote women. We need our amazing male colleagues to advocate for us, and we ultimately need a working culture where it’s okay to call out bias and exclusion, whether intentional or unconscious. In a way that is respectful and measured. But importantly, we need to see more women in senior positions leading by example and who can drive ownership for women leaders in their wake. It’s incredibly powerful and inspiring when women in senior positions do that in their organisations. Amazon has changed significantly in this area since I joined and is making real efforts to instil this in the culture- and we are starting to see an impact in diversity and inclusion; in my own team, we even have more women than men now. However, there’s a lot more that we can do as an organisation to move things forward.
What would you have done differently in the early stages of your career?
Everything I wish I’d done more of or differently earlier in my career is wrapped up in that big, nebulous concept of ‘self-belief’. I would have wanted to show more confidence and conviction, been more vocal with my views and pushed myself forward. I would also have felt more comfortable showcasing my achievements. And ultimately, I wouldn’t have dwelled on any sense of feeling that I didn’t know enough. Does everybody know more than me? No. I wish I had checked myself on that more deliberately and intentionally from the start.
What advice would you give young women coming up behind you?
Ultimately, regardless of gender, your success, job satisfaction and performance will be largely determined by your ability to build good working relationships on a human level. People will not work with you or sign that deal if they don’t trust or respect you. And one-to-one working relationships can sometimes help people get beyond their biases. Once they got to know me, my colleagues understood that I was out to deliver the same results and that although I was doing it differently, ultimately, our intentions were aligned. I would advise young women coming into tech to be attuned to bias but not to let it become a distraction. It would help if you assumed that regardless of your gender, you will be measured by your performance and what you deliver. It might not be the case sometimes unfortunately, but you should absolutely always go in with that assumption.
