Microsoft Hires Senior Amazon Executive Who Was Working On Payments Related Stuff

Microsoft has recently made a high profile hire from its cloud services competitor Amazon. Iain Kennedy has now joined as Sr. Director of Product Management, Commerce Platform Strategy at Microsoft. He was previously working in couple of high profile roles at Microsoft involving payments and strategy. Recode reported that Kennedy most recently oversaw the product management team that was working on a new set of payments-related products for consumers like the new digital wallet app for smartphones that lets people store gift card and loyalty card information and use it at participating stores.

His previous roles,

• Head of Product Management, Amazon Local Commerce (Consumer) Amazon.com

  April 2013 – August 2014 (1 year 5 months)Seattle, WA

  The Amazon Local Commerce team is charged with extending Amazon’s value proposition (price, selection, and convenience) from e-commerce to commerce in general. I led the product team for Consumer Products in Seattle, WA and San Francisco, CA.

• Principal, Product Management and Marketing, Amazon Global Payments Amazon.com

  December 2008 – April 2013 (4 years 5 months)Seattle, WA

  Lead the Consumer Payments Product Management, Global Payments Marketing and User Experience Design teams.

Two weeks back, Apple announced its payment service Apple Pay. Do you think Microsoft should also come up with its own payment service?

Source: Recode, LinkedIn