Amazon vet takes senior tech post at Nordstrom

Nordstrom Inc. has named Kumar Srinivasan, a former technology executive at Amazon.com who has also experience with e-commerce technology providers, as CTO.



Srinivasan served as VP of Amazon Web Services from 2005-2008 and general manager of Amazon Payments from 2008-2010. More recently, he co-founded SaaS-based customer engagement platform Evocalize in 2012. Srinivasan also served as CTO of consumer-generated content platform Bazaarvoice from 2011-2012 and chief product and technology officer of social commerce site Lockerz.com from 2010-2011.



In its announcement of his hiring, Nordstrom cited experience including agile development practices, cloud expertise and experience developing “highly innovative customer focused outcomes.” In his new role, Srinivasan will focus on reducing complexity while optimizing engineering and software productivity and effectiveness across four Nordstrom technology teams. The teams will support the company's service & experience, loyalty & marketing, engineering and supply chain initiatives.



"We're bringing Kumar to Nordstrom at an important time as we are positioning our Technology organization to better support our long-term growth plans," said Dan Little, CIO, Nordstrom. "Kumar's extensive experience in strategy, product development and delivering technology solutions that support a great user experience, as well as his passion for the customer, will be invaluable."



Nordstrom has laid off at least 130 IT staff members in the past month. All the layoffs were part of an organizational restructuring and leveling of IT spending. The job cuts came on the heels of Nordstrom announcing during its fourth quarter earnings call that it will maintain its fiscal 2015 IT spending level of $300 million during fiscal 2016. That figure represents a 35% increase from the retailer’s 2014 technology budget.



During a recent analyst call, Nordstrom CFO Michael Koppel said the retailer will focus on fewer, more meaningful IT projects in the coming year. These are set to include a scalable, omnichannel merchandising system, as well as more efficient and cost-effective deliveries.



Srinivasan’s hiring demonstrates that Nordstrom is still willing to spend money on IT resources, as long as there is strategic justification. It is also surely no accident that his 18-year IT career includes five years at Amazon.com, a digital retailer where executives are required to demonstrate high degrees of innovation and effectiveness.