Amazon Web Services (AWS) VP Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec talks life in the Peace Corps and executive leadership

Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec is an AWS Vice President who leads large-scale AWS services that have revolutionized how customers build applications using cloud storage, dev/ops monitoring and observability, messaging, and streaming. Before Mai-Lan got into tech, she was a forestry volunteer with the Peace Corps in sub-Saharan Africa, helping communities with ecological restoration and supporting women artisan organizations. ?

Mai-Lan reflects on how she applies the lessons from her Peace Corps experience to Amazon’s Leadership Principles , including the importance of developing our next generation of leaders. That experience is one of the main reasons Mai-Lan created a “Leadership Development Series” specifically for her team many years ago, hosting a monthly discussion and video workshop series that focuses on topics that help cultivate skill growth and development.

We asked Mai-Lan to share more about her career path to executive leadership, experience in the Peace Corps, and how she’s helping Amazonians broaden their influence through leadership development at AWS.

AWS Careers: Tell us more about your path to Amazon. Specifically, how have the different roles and experiences shaped your career?

Mai-Lan: My dad was a career U.S. Foreign Service officer, so I grew up living in different countries like India, China, Taiwan, and Russia. When you move to a different country every few years, you have to get really good at studying the new world around you—how people interact, how you participate in your new community and culture, and what you can take away from your experience. It sets you up as a lifelong learner. I’ve applied that at every step of my career.

For example, when I joined the Peace Corps to work in Mali, West Africa as a forestry volunteer, I learned that human potential is everywhere, and it’s on us (as individuals and a community) to recognize and develop that potential. Whether I’m an AWS leader, an executive advisor to the board for our internal Amazon Asians@ affinity group, or a mentor, I try to learn from those around me and put in place an engagement model for how I can help.

AWS Careers: The Peace Corps is a service opportunity to get immersed in a community abroad and tackle pressing challenges. How did this experience influence what you do today?

Mai-Lan: At Amazon, our Leadership Principles guide how we innovate, make decisions, and operate as part of a broader team. The “Ownership” principle calls out that “Leaders are owners,” and “They never say ‘that’s not my job.’” I started to learn what ownership meant when I was working in northern Mali for the Peace Corps. If there was a job to be done, I would ask myself “If not me, then who?”?That might mean me writing letters to different non-profits for micro loans or catching the chicken to cook for a neighborhood gathering.

Sometimes, though, the answer was someone else who could benefit from the experience. For example, I lived about a mile away from our community well. A friend of mine, Fatimata, pointed out that if I paid for one of the neighborhood teenagers to haul the water, that teenager could earn recurring revenue for her family to do a routine task. The right answer to “If not me, then who?” was someone else.

As a leader of organizations, I still ask myself that question—if not me, then who? Sometimes it is me taking ownership because it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes it is me asking another leader to step into the experience because that, too, can be the right thing to do. It is important to do both and to know the right moment to step in or offer the ownership role to another person as an opportunity.

AWS Careers: What advice do you have for Amazonians who want to be better leaders and grow their careers?

Mai-Lan: Be excellent at what you do, whether it is writing code or helping customers on a support call. Career growth starts with functional excellence in the job you have today.

Be bold. If you have an idea, turn it into an (awesome) proposal and put it forward.

Be insightful. Make the observation, proposal, or astute question that turns a corner for the discussion in the room or invents a whole new direction for the business.

Stay grounded in your moment.?As a working mom with three kids, I have learned how important it is to stay present and fully focused on the moment. I stay fully engaged in the work topic or in a family moment at hand. Stay present in your moment, whether it is work, friends, family, or your own self-care, and live it to its fullest.

AWS Careers: How do you cultivate leadership among your own team and across Amazon?

Mai-Lan: The first step is providing clarity around what’s important for the organization so that team members at all levels can act like leaders. Saying you care about cultivating leadership isn’t enough. It’s just a good intention unless you put in your own time and effort to make it happen. You need to be intentional about how you invest in making sure that people understand the larger goals of your service and what it means to be on the leadership team, and help them develop the skills to get there.

AWS Careers: Can you share more about your “Leadership Development Series” and some of the feedback from employees?

Mai-Lan: I started the leadership series for my team a little over 10 years ago after talking to a new team member who said they loved the Amazon Leadership Principles but didn’t know how to implement them in real-life work situations. We started by focusing on the definition of a Leadership Principle, but it quickly became clear that we needed to talk about how to live the Leadership Principles in addition to understanding the concepts. Currently, we have three dozen topics where we’ve talked about different strategies and concepts to “live the Leadership Principles.” Max Peterson , vice president of AWS Worldwide Public Sector, and I partnered to capture some of the topics as part of a general AWS leadership series. Now, any employee at Amazon has the opportunity to learn from these videos.

AWS Careers: Living your principles is something you have talked about quite extensively. What Leadership Principle stands out the most to you and why?

Mai-Lan: I’d say that Ownership is my favorite. I feel personally responsible for the growth, health and happiness of my customers, my teams, and my services.

AWS Careers: What’s the best advice you ever received?

Mai-Lan: It was the combination of hearing “Why on earth not?” and seeing the exasperated expression on the face of a co-worker as I explained why I thought I couldn’t possibly get a job that I really wanted. It was early in my career and it made me realize that the thing that was stopping me was my self-doubt. I ended up applying for and getting that job, and have kept that advice (and her expression) in mind ever since.

Video version of “Living your principles: lessons from the Peace Corps” here .

More on what it’s like to work at AWS here .