Meet the guru of the 38 -year supply chain from Amazon, helping CEO Andy Jassy to sail on price chaos with a giant fleet of planes, trucks and robots

When the Covid pandemic upset Amazon’s operations – and the whole world in 2020 – Udan Madan was responsible for crucial secondary work: understand how to acquire hundreds of overseas masks for Amazon warehouse workers and help the employee vaccination program.

At the time, Madan was a vice -president of Amazon who quickly climbed at the start of the thirties – one of the youngest of the hundreds with this same title inside the technology giant. But he still had no specific experience in what he was responsible for, especially in the midst of a level of chaos that he had never known before.

But as Amazon colleagues learned, Madan turned out to be a very fast learner. He understood it.

This is a key trait that explains why the CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, ​​recently promoted Madan, 38, to the company’s senior vice-president, and in the level 11 management level praised inside the technology giant. It is also likely that, according to a source, an occupied Jassy personally stood his hand to register with Madan in 2022 when the CEO of world consumption, Dave Clark, left Amazon – a surprise decision that left many direct reports from Clark. (The source, like the others cited in this article, are known for FortuneBut asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals for speaking frankly about the interior operation of Amazon).

Today, by working as what is essentially the director of the Amazon supply chain and supervising a global base of employees north of 1 million warehouses and logistics employees, Madan is invited to orchestrate once again in the middle of chaos, because the whip of the live of the Trump administration’s tariff dance has threatened to roll the movement of Amazon goods around the world. In addition to the staff, Madan finally oversees a fleet of tens of thousands of trucks, around 100 freight planes and more than 2,000 warehouses in more than two dozen countries – with more than 750,000 robots and count. And when the “the whole store” shipments of sneakers, sofas or tarts are compromised, it is ultimately Madan’s problem to solve.

But in a recent interview with FortuneMadan argued that him – and his teams – were mainly trained for this day, thanks to the challenges of having to operate the vast warehouse and transport network of the company during the cascade waves of the pandemic, and the supply chain and the disturbances of the shipping ports that followed. Yes, the tariff disorder required more frequent communication between the teams of Madan, but the chief of the supply chain considers that his division is now built to support potential crises like that of the last two months.

“The last five years as a team have helped us develop a lot of resilience in the way we operate,” said Madan Fortune In an interview, “and also prompted us to invest in the creation of more flexibility in our logistics network to manage a slightly more inherent variability than we see occurring quite frequently.”

Madan has referred to new trucking and storage services that Amazon has launched in recent years. One is Amazon Warehouse and Distribution – or AWD – which allows Amazon sellers and sellers to store large quantities of inventory in dedicated Amazon warehouses for fees, and to ensure that the technology giant distributes and then distributes smaller allowances of goods to various execution centers as customers’ request for articles. (The service has served as a welcome alternative to certain merchants who sell on Amazon and do not want to manage their own warehouses or hire a third -party logistics company to perform one for them. But AWD was also criticized by certain sellers who felt in a hurry to use it simply to avoid new Amazon costs that they would have otherwise to pay, to be disappointed by the last season vacation.)

The new trucking and storage services were useful in Amazon because the company has helped certain sellers and sellers to precipitate more inventory in the United States before some of the new prices have touched, said Madan.

An engineer with a talent to see in the corners

Madan grew up in Hyderabad, India, before going to high school in New Delhi, and finally moved to the United States to attend the University of Texas in Austin. Despite a moment, considering becoming a doctor, then flirting with the idea of ​​an investment bank career, Madan joined Amazon as a software engineer in 2008 after graduating in computer science and economics. At 22, he had been promoted to director and would soon manage major technological organizations for the new “Last Mile” delivery activities of Amazon – Amazon Flex, which are deliveries made by everyday workers, and possibly the new delivery service network (DSP), composed of small and medium -sized delivery companies, often dedicated exclusively to the delivery of Amazon packages.

“”[W]Thumb that I arrived on Amazon, I was given the opportunity after the opportunity to take more and to be able to stretch myself, “said Madan in an interview.” For each leader for which I worked, it was not how long I was here. It was not that I was 22 when I went into management for the first time. None of this was important.

A former Madan colleague said that he was distinguished among his peers for his ability to go to the details, while expanding his point of view to understand more holistic strategies and commercial impacts – a characteristic of many best managers from Amazon.

“It was very impressive for me that someone having a basic engineering background could have been able to dig into financial analysis,” said the source, “but also on the corners and having an intestinal sense where the competitive landscape was going.”

In 2017, it would be exploited for a coveted role known as a technical advisor or a “shadow” – with regard to the chief of staff – for the Amazon chief of world operations of the supply chain, Dave Clark. Several former leaders who spoke to Fortune underlined this role as a inflection point for Madan. Under Clark, Madan became “more an observer and a deep thinker” than his typical self-language self, according to an old vice-president of Amazon who regularly interacted with Madan at that time.

Another former leader, said after a year of learning under Clark, Madan “broke out a completely different framework”.

“He absorbed Dave’s mentorship and leadership every second,” said the former Amazon leader.

While Madan would not distinguish this “shadow” role of a year as more crucial than others in its development as a leader at Amazon, he said Fortune that it has provided a “more concentrated” period of time “when you can have them much more diverse perspectives to inform you and give you the opportunity to interface with a much more varied set of really strong individuals.”

Over the past six years, Madan has won even more responsibilities. In 2019, it was raised to a vice-president, which is a role of senior manager at Amazon when it could be more intermediate management in other companies. Then, at the end of 2022, the CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, ​​added Madan to the “S-Team”, which consists of 29 of the main leaders of Amazon, who meet the CEO as often as weekly to consult everything, crucial launches and pressing crises in long-term discussion and progress on “objectives of the S team”.

Earlier this year, Madan was again promoted, Vice -President Director – one of 18 years of age to the company. When he was announced internally, Madan said that he had told his team that it was a recognition of all their work to serve customers and improve the business, whether by improving delivery speeds or widening the company’s scope to customers living in more rural areas.

Madan, dressed with casualness in a buttoned shirt, appeared as kind but kept, in a video interview with Fortune.

If there is an area where some former senior colleagues hope that Madan has improved, it is his equalizer or “emotional intelligence”. While the former colleagues attest that Madan was far from being a loose cannon or a crier as a manager, they recalled him who sometimes had trouble connecting with the staff at a personal level. In one case in the late 2010s, after his role “Shadow”, he resumed a new delivery team at the start of the new year. The team, according to a former senior executive, came out of a especially successful holiday season and Madan could have enrolled with its new direct reports by recognizing at least this success. Instead, he went in the other direction, blinding them with a litany of failures for which he thought he was responsible.

It is not necessarily rare at Amazon – many business leaders go upwards because of their IQ more than their EQ, say the former initiates. Then, when they start to supervise teams of thousands or hundreds of thousands, the development of a better equalizer is more stressed.

As for Madan himself, the executive said he was still learning in many areas, “and I think it will be true for a very long time.”

But, he added: “I hope on almost all dimensions [that] I am at least a little better than me when I started here. »»

With an still in progress World War, it should have many opportunities to show its progress.

Are you a current Amazon employee with reflections on this subject or advice to share? Contact Jason del Rey in jason.delrey@fortune.com, jasondelrey@protonmail.comor via the signal of messaging applications and WhatsApp to 917-655-4267. You can also contact him is Linkedin or at @Delrey on X, @jdelrey On the wires and on Bluesky.

This story was initially presented on Fortune.com