Toni Reid, after 24 years at Amazon, is joining YouTube as VP of product management to lead the video platform’s Emerging Experiences and Community team.
In the role, she’ll oversee YouTube Shorts — the TikTok-like short-form video format YouTube has seen gain major traction — as well as YouTube Gaming, livestreaming and community products.
Reid, who starts Monday (April 25), reports to Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer. She takes over for Chris Jaffe, who after three years in the role took a new position last month as YouTube chief design officer, continuing to report to Mohan.
Reid most recently served as Amazon’s VP of Alexa experience and Echo devices. In 2014, she was part of the team that launched the Alexa voice assistant and Echo smart speakers. Reid is credited with establishing Alexa’s personality and expanding Alexa to new countries. In earlier roles at the ecommerce giant, she was responsible for launching display advertising for amazon.com, the Dash instant-buying device (since discontinued), and the X-ray entertainment information feature on Amazon’s Prime Video.
“Toni brings an impressive track record of developing high-profile initiatives from the ground up, advocating for users, and building diverse, high-performing teams,” Mohan said in a statement to Variety. “We’re thrilled to have Toni join the team in its mission to make YouTube the best place for creators of all stripes and their fans around the world.”
Reid said she was “really drawn by YouTube’s mission of giving everyone a voice and showing them the world.”
“As a longtime advocate of consumers and underserved communities, I am delighted by the opportunity to build products for creators and viewers of different backgrounds,” Reid commented. “I am really excited about this next chapter in my career, where I’ll get to work with the team at YouTube to tackle big challenges and help grow the creator economy.”
At YouTube, Reid will remain based in the Seattle area. Before joining Amazon back in 1998, Reid worked at Microsoft as a recruiter. She holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of North Texas.
From Variety US