- Jeff Bezos is brining in a veteran Amazon executive to oversee his $10 billion climate and biodiversity fund.
- Tom Taylor retired from Amazon in 2022, after running the company’s Alexa voice assistant division and overseeing the third-party seller services unit during his 23-year stint at the e-commerce giant.
- The Bezos Earth fund has disbursed roughly $2.3 billion in grants to “preserve and protect the natural world” since launching in 2020.
Jeff Bezos is bringing in a veteran
Amazon
executive to oversee his $10 billion climate and biodiversity fund.
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Tom Taylor, who previously ran Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant division, will serve as the new president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, the former tech executive wrote in
a LinkedIn post
on Tuesday. Taylor announced his retirement from Amazon
in 2022
after roughly 23 years at the company, which also included a role overseeing the third-party seller services unit.
“I am thrilled to join the Bezos Earth Fund and lead with the bold mandate to invent our way out of Earth’s environmental challenges with a combination of long-term thinking, technical curiosity, and excellent execution,” Taylor wrote.
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Bezos
launched the fund
in 2020 to combat the effects of climate change by issuing grants to scientists, activists and other organizations in their efforts to “preserve and protect the natural world.” The fund aims to disburse all its capital by 2030.
So far, the fund has distributed $2.3 billion in grants,
according to its website
.
Bezos has spent more time on the fund since
stepping down
as CEO of the e-commerce giant in 2021. Bezos has in recent years donated Amazon shares to the fund and some of his other philanthropic efforts.
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Taylor will replace
Andrew Steer
, the former head of an environmental think tank,
who stepped down
as the fund’s CEO in February.
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