Q&A with Javier Mozo Olea, Principal Technical Product Manager with Amazon Business

Javier Mozo Olea grew up in Spain and holds a Telecommunications Engineering degree from the Universidad Pública de Navarra and an MBA from Chicago Booth. He started his career at Airbus in 2010 and joined Amazon as a Sr. Product Manager in 2020. Javier was promoted to Principal Product Manager in April 2024 and leads the Amazon Business Destination Experience product team that devises new products to improve the delivery experience of AB customers – including businesses and organizations of all sizes.?Javier is based in Bellevue, WA.

Can you tell us about your background and how you got started in the tech industry?

I was born and raised in Spain. From a young age, I was drawn to technology, which led me to study Telecommunications Engineering - a multidisciplinary degree blending computer science, programming, and electronics. I started my career at Airbus, where I spent 8 years working across Spain, France, and Germany in various functions including laboratory testing, systems engineering, and manufacturing operations. Though my time at Airbus was fascinating and rewarding, I sought to transition to a Product Manager role and to a faster-paced industry. This brought me to pursue an MBA degree at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2018. There, I complemented my technical background with the industry and business knowledge necessary to succeed as a Product Manager. Witnessing Amazon's innovative culture throughout its history increased my interest in the company, and I did not hesitate to join the company right after graduating from my MBA.

Tell us about your journey at Amazon.

My journey at Amazon began with a summer internship in Marketing for Devices in 2019, and I joined the Amazon Business Operations (AB Ops) team full-time a year later. Our mission at AB Ops is to improve the delivery experience of AB customers, who typically have different delivery requirements than the traditional?amazon.com?customers: whether it is about delivering when they’re open, consolidating their deliveries into pallets or fewer shipments, or simply having broader visibility and control over what’s being shipped within their accounts. My journey in AB Ops started as an individual contributor improving how we collect delivery preferences from AB customers; then I expanded my scope to cover how businesses create and maintain their addresses, ship orders to multiple addresses, or provide site-specific information for delivery drivers to know where to go within a building. Earlier this year I got promoted to Principal Product Manager, and I now lead a team that devises new delivery solutions for business customers worldwide. While we have made significant progress over the past 4 years, I remain excited and engaged by how much there’s still to do!

What is your favorite Amazon memory?

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to travel to Japan with our director and several colleagues. Witnessing how Amazon adapts its logistics to the unique constraints of the Japanese region was an eye-opening experience. One of the key factors of Japan is its population density, which is almost 10 times higher than that of the US. This reality demands specific operational solutions: for example, a standard U.S. delivery van would struggle to navigate and deliver efficiently in the congested streets of Tokyo. As a result, we utilize a fleet of smaller delivery vehicles in Japan. Similarly, the real estate available for logistics’ facilities in Japan requires resourcefulness to deploy customized operations. This exposure led me to realize that, while the core customer delivery needs may be similar across geographies, building the right products across the globe requires awareness of local factors to devise tailored solutions that respond to the operational reality of the region. Last but not least, the wonderful hospitality of our colleagues in Japan enabled us to enjoy and learn a lot about the local culture, work style, and customs.

What accomplishment at Amazon are you most proud of?

One of the specific business needs we’re working on is about enabling business customers to easily ship the same cart to many different locations (e.g., physical stores) in one-go, rather than placing separate orders. To improve this experience, I organized a workshop with our Tech team in Madrid, where 6 experts in engineering, user experience, and product management brainstormed different solutions. The team discussed the customer need and came up with a new approach to the problem: instead of requesting customers to manually enter or select every destination address during checkout, which was a tedious and error-prone process, we could leverage AB's existing tools that enable customers to upload their address lists in bulk. The new solution would enable customers to upload an excel file with their delivery addresses, and have their cart configured to be shipped to their uploaded locations with a single click. The team ideated, designed, and built the solution in a record time, earning a "Just Do It" award, and the new solution now enables customers to save hours when placing multi-address orders. We were delighted to learn that many customers, including various non-profits shipping items to families in need, were amazed by the ease of use.

What is your favorite leadership principle and why?

My favorite Amazon Leadership Principle is Bias for Action. In the past, I've seen how conflictive viewpoints can lead to extensive discussions that can delay product launches. In contrast, Bias for Action promotes a culture of experimentation and innovation. In many situations, it's better to take calculated risks to find what works best for our customers and make informed decisions based on usage data. Even in the worst-case scenario where an experiment doesn't perform as expected, there are always valuable lessons to learn so that we get back to the drawing board to build something better. This principle has proven invaluable in my work at AB Ops: rather than endlessly seeking consensus and debating the "perfect" solution, we’re open to quickly test concepts, gather customer feedback, and iterate to deploy more impactful improvements.

What do you do for fun/work life balance?

From a young age in Spain, I grew up going fishing with my family every summer, and so I was truly amazed to discover the natural wonders and the outdoor opportunities of the Pacific Northwest. Almost every weekend, my wife and I take our little one-year-old out to use our hands to catch something - whether it's crabs, fishes, or even squid. Many times, we come home empty-handed, but it's always a marvelous chance to enjoy the outdoors and spend quality time as a family. During the week, I love discovering new neighborhoods while pushing the baby's stroller: the little one seems to love the speed and adventures.

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