In this Business Talk with Michael Avery interview, Robert Koen discusses Amazon South Africa\u2019s first Prime Day \u2013 including the biggest trends from the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koen is the Amazon Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa and boasts nearly three decades of experience working in complex markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has worked at Amazon for nearly 12 years and, during this time, held multiple leadership positions before his current post, which he assumed in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This included working as the Director for Buy with Prime and as a member of the USA Partner Network, overseeing AWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More recently, he has been instrumental in the rollout of the Amazon e-commerce offering in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before joining Amazon, Koen worked as the Head of Americas and Asia Pacific for TIBCO Software Inc. and before that, as the Vice President and General Manager for LanguageLine Solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, Koen spent over seven years at Genesys, where he held positions including Senior Director and Client Director EMEA, and six years at IBM, where he served as a Client Executive and Distributor Manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The experience and skills Koen has accumulated from these various positions have been instrumental in his oversight of the highly successful launch of Amazon in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koen holds a Master\u2019s degree in Marketing from the Alliance Manchester Business School and a BCom (Honours) in Finance and Marketing from the University of Witwatersrand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this Business Talk interview, Koen discusses Amazon\u2019s first Prime Day in South Africa and the buying trends he observed among South African customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koen highlights how customers engaged with Amazon\u2019s Flash Deals and whether Prime Day attracted many new customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also outlines the biggest lessons Amazon South Africa learned from their first-ever Prime Day in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koen concludes the interview by sharing what he would do differently or add for the next Prime Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watch the interview with Robert Koen below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n