Tom Sly
Director at AWS | Driving Innovation, Revenue Growth and Global Expansion
- Role
- Director, Amazon Web Services - Communication Developer Services at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Location
- Seattle, WA, US
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Tom Sly
I lead teams responsible for a portfolio of services that empower developers to integrate communication features—SMS, email, push notifications, chat, voice, and video—into applications and websites. Earlier on, as GM for AWS Direct Connect, I achieved 13X revenue growth and expanded its global footprint 4X, while significantly enhancing reliability.In July 2023, I returned to AWS, where I currently lead a portfolio services within the AWS Solutions organization. Prior to this, I spent two years with Amazon’s Special Projects Group, spearheading high-impact initiatives. I led a cross-functional team to identify transformative opportunities, rigorously validate their potential, craft business plans, and secure executive buy-in, including pitches to the CEO and Amazon’s senior leadership.From 2016 to 2021, I served as the General Manager for AWS Direct Connect, leading global teams across product management, software development, and network engineering to deliver the fastest, most reliable private connections to AWS. Under my leadership, revenue grew 13X, our Point of Presence (POP) footprint expanded 4X from 30 to 116 locations, and several major customers adopted Direct Connect as their primary connection to AWS. I also helped grow the team from 30 engineers in a single office to 120 spanning five offices worldwide, significantly enhancing scalability and global reach while delivering an exceptional customer experience.Before joining AWS, I co-founded SnippetsBot, a Slack-integrated productivity tool designed to streamline team progress reporting, with Matt Tanase (co-founder of Slicehost, acquired by Rackspace). Our work demonstrated how small, focused tools could drive meaningful productivity improvements for teams and that it was possible to build a service entirely within Slack.My nine years at Alphabet were dedicated to pioneering product and content partnerships at Google and YouTube. Notable contributions include leading high-stakes negotiations with Apple’s senior leadership to make Google Maps and Google Location Services the default mapping solution for iOS, advancing Google Maps’ transit features to revolutionize public transit navigation, and scaling YouTube’s educational and news content offerings to establish it as a trusted platform for global learning and current events.Earlier in my career, I honed my skills at Deloitte, leading customer relationship management projects for Fortune 100 clients. These experiences deepened my expertise in strategic problem-solving, operational efficiency, and building scalable systems.
Experience
Director, Amazon Web Services - Communication Developer Services
Jun 2023 — Present · Seattle, WA, US
Lead a team of 150+ engineering and product leaders at Amazon Web Services, overseeing P&L ownership, Go-To-Market strategy, and product development for four AWS services: AWS End User Messaging (formerly known as Pinpoint), Amazon Simple Email Service, Amazon WorkMail, and Amazon WorkDocs.
Education
Boston College
Bachelor of Arts - BA
Harvard Business School
Master of Business Administration - MBA
Skills
- Business Development
- Management
- Product Management
- Strategy
- Program Management
- Financial Modeling
- New Business Development
- Competitive Analysis
- Start-Ups
- Product Marketing
- Analytics
- Business Strategy
- Cross-Functional Team Leadership
- Crm
- Strategic Partnerships
- Sales
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