Alexa Experience Vice President Leaves Amazon for YouTube Exec Role
One of Amazon’s top Alexa executive has jumped ship for Google subsidiary YouTube, according to a report from Variety. Toni Reid, who’s been vice preisdent of Alexa experiences and Echo devices since 2014, will now serve at vice president of product management for YouTube.
Toni Reid
Reid’s move comes after almost a quarter of a century at Amazon. She helped develop display advertising for the website before working on the Dash device for instant buying. That led directly to her role launching and managing Alexa and the Echo line of smart speakers and smart displays. Based on interviews and comments over the years from others at Amazon, she played a key role in outlining Alexa’s personality and manner when interacting with people. She also helped bring the voice assistant and related devices to more countries, most recently Brazil.
She will now lead YouTube’s team for ’emerging experience and community.’ That portfolio’s main focus encompasses YouTube Shorts, the new TikTok-esque short video platform and its still stunted library. She will also oversee work on YouTube Gaming and other livestremaing and community-managed services. She is taking over for Chris Jaffe, who is now chief design officer at YouTube, and working under chief product officer Neal Mohan.
“As a longtime advocate of consumers and underserved communities, I am delighted by the opportunity to build products for creators and viewers of different backgrounds,” Reid said in a statement. “I am really excited about this next chapter in my career, where I’ll get to work with the team at YouTube to tackle big challenges and help grow the creator economy.”
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