A Geek Leader Podcast - inspiring technical and creative leaders around the world AGL 337: Brian “Tap” Taptich from AWS
About Brian “Tap” Taptich
Tap is a seasoned leader with 25+ years of experience leading strategy, technology, business, marketing, and corporate development at worldwide technology companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100. He is passionate about developing and leading cross-functional teams to achieve bold goals on a global scale.
Currently, Tap is VP of Strategic Initiatives. In this role, he designs and implements key initiatives to build and execute AWS growth strategy. Tap leads strategic planning and provides thought leadership to AWS senior executives. He also works with AWS senior leadership to evolve AWS’ long-term vision and operational plan, including assessing current strategy, designing optimized solutions, and supporting implementation across the organization.
Prior to leading Strategic Initiatives, Tap ran the Worldwide Specialist Organization (WWSO) that builds and executes go-to-market strategies for AWS’ multibillion dollar businesses. Under his leadership, the team tripled in size and AWS revenue grew significantly from $41B ARR in 2020 to $85B ARR in 2023. Prior to WWSO, Tap led AWS Game Tech, a vertical strategy that spanned AWS Services, Sales, Solutions Architecture, Business Development, and Marketing. Tap led this team for 3 years and under his leadership, the team doubled the games industry revenue.
Before AWS, Tap was the CEO of Bitcasa, a venture-backed cloud file system services company built entirely on AWS. Under his leadership, the company grew the data under their management to over 30 PB, with users in 120+ countries. Bitcasa was sold to Intel at the end of 2016. Prior to Bitcasa, Tap has also held senior executive positions in Business Development and General Management at Zynga, BitTorrent, and Electronic Arts. Tap also spent some time in finance and worked at both Doll Capital Management and Allen & Company.
Tap received a BA from Williams College and a MBA from Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management, with a focus on Entrepreneurship/ Entrepreneurial Studies.
Today We Talked About
- Tap’s Background
- 16 leadership principles
- ownership
- Bitcasa
- Turning the ship around
- Culture
- Customer focused
- Solving big problems
- AWS
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