Amazon loses second vice president in devices division this month

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By Greg Bensinger

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -A fifteen-year veteran of Amazon’s devices division who had a hand in developing many of the most recognizable gadgets is leaving the company at the end of October, marking the second high-level departure in October.

Lindo St. Angel, vice president of hardware for Lab126, plans to leave next week, Amazon confirmed following a Reuters inquiry. The circumstances of his departure could not be learned and St. Angel did not respond to a request for comment.

“We are grateful for his many contributions to Amazon and wish him the best,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement, without providing additional details about St. Angel.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported, Rob Williams, device software and services vice president, and a member of the elite internal group advising CEO Andy Jassy said he had left his post. He will remain with the company through year’s end in an advisory role to devices chief Panos Panay.

The devices and services unit is working to turn around years of unprofitability, including through layoffs and a slimmed-down product lineup. Amazon is overhauling its Fire tablet computers with Android operating software for the first time, Reuters reported in August, in an effort to make them more broadly appealing. But a multi-year project to update its Alexa voice assistant with embedded generative artificial intelligence has rolled out slowly with no clear path to profitability.

Less than a month ago, Amazon showed off its lineup of new devices at an event in New York, including refreshed Echo speakers, Fire TV streaming devices, Kindle readers and Ring cameras.

In his leadership role, St. Angel helped oversee development of such diverse devices as the Echo voice assistant speaker, Astro robot and Fire tablet. His last day is October 31.

Amazon shares were up 1.1% to $220.36 on Thursday.

(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; editing by Diane Craft)