We were delighted to hear that our Military Programme Manager for EMEA, Gillian Russell, was presented with the award for Advocate of the Year 2019 at the British Ex-Forces Business Awards ceremony in London.
Amazon also picked up the award for Employer of the Year, where our work with Military Veterans was recognised across the full spectrum of our business. At Amazon, we are passionate about training and providing service leavers with the tools to thrive across our UK business, including in operations, engineering, logistics, HR and cloud computing.
“Firstly, I want to thank all the nominees who are doing an incredible job advocating for, and employing, amazing military talent,” said Gillian Russell, Military Programme Manager Amazon EMEA. “Service leavers and veterans are remarkable role models at Amazon. I am humbled to receive this award and remain just as passionate as ever about ensuring that ex-military personnel and their spouses can find rewarding careers after their service. I feel fortunate to work for an organisation such as Amazon, that gives me the opportunity to advocate on this incredibly important subject every day”.
Since introducing our military veteran’s recruitment programme to the UK in 2011, we have employed almost 400 men and women into operations management and engineering positions across our network, and many have been promoted into senior leadership positions. In 2017, Amazon and AWS were two of the first to sign up to the Armed Forces Covenant in the UK - a promise to ensure that those who serve or have served, and their families, are treated fairly. Here at Amazon, we continue to be proud of the contribution our ex-service personnel make every day.
The British Ex-Forces in Business Awards hosted 900 business and military leaders and is the world’s largest celebration of military veterans in business. A total of 19 winners were announced, shortlisted from over 400 outstanding nominations.
