AWS Leader Teresa Carlson leaving Amazon for Splunk
After more than a decade leading Amazon Web Services’ public sector business, legendary government IT leader Teresa Carlson is joining Splunk‘s leadership team as president and chief growth officer.
Carlson’s first day with Splunk will be April 19. In her new role, she will focus on growing the company’s business transformation efforts, accelerating growth and advancing its cloud initiatives.
“I am thrilled to join the passionate and talented team at Splunk, and motivated by this opportunity to bring exciting cloud and data solutions to global customers across all industries,” Carlson said in a statement. “Together, we will build on Splunk’s legacy of innovation as one of the fastest-growing companies in the history of enterprise software.”
Since joining Amazon Web Services in 2010, Carlson has grown the company into a leader in public sector cloud sales, particularly in its work with the federal government. In 2013, she oversaw AWS’s deal with the CIA to provide classified cloud services to the intelligence community — a contract that would cement the firm as a leader in providing cloud services for highly sensitive government workloads.
Meanwhile, Carlson’s departure isn’t the only change AWS must endure. CEO Andy Jassy was recently promoted to lead the entire Amazon portfolio after founder Jeff Bezos stepped down in February.
At Splunk, Carlson will report to CEO Doug Merritt, who said “she’ll be an excellent addition to our team.”
“Teresa has an incredible record of leading category-defining, high-growth companies at global scale to even greater success,” Merritt said. “Beyond bringing deep industry, software and cloud knowledge – which will be invaluable to Splunk as we continue to build on our strong foundation and rapid expansion – it is clear that Teresa embodies the values that define our strong Splunk culture.”
Carlson is a recipient of several FedScoop honors, including FedScoop 50 and Best Bosses in Federal IT awards.