If there is one phrase that captures Ann Kinyanjui’s career so far, it is “Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit”. She believes and has practised it wholly, rising from an Amazon intern to a finance manager overseeing the US, Canada, and Mexico.
The leadership principle by the American technology giant encourages employees to question decisions, including those made by their managers, provided they can defend their positions. Once a decision is reached, however, everyone is expected to support it.
“People are encouraged to not always agree with what their manager says. You can disagree with what they say as long as you’re able to defend it. And once all of you are aligned, you commit to it, regardless of the level,” she tells the BDLife .
Amazon blog’s description of the principle says employees are expected to challenge decisions respectfully, even when doing so is uncomfortable. Leaders should stand by their convictions rather than compromise for the sake of harmony, but once a decision is made, they must wholly commit to it.
For Ms Kinyanjui, who is in her early 30s and spent nearly seven years in Kenya’s corporate sector before moving to the US, this approach has shaped her into one of the youngest executives at Amazon.
“I think it works because that gives room for anyone to raise their concerns or give their perspectives, and especially for a diverse group.”
She believes the approach can improve decision-making by allowing people to contribute different perspectives instead of simply accepting a manager’s position.
“It teaches leaders that it’s not always your way that works, but people can have different ways of solving things to get even better outcomes,” she adds.
But does encouraging disagreement necessarily prevent a dictatorial manager from bulldozing their ideas?
Ms Kinyanjui says the principle depends on employees having the confidence to speak up and managers being willing to listen. The expectation, she points out, is that people can challenge an idea before the team settles on a course of action.
“So, we will disagree. I will raise my point, and then you will listen. Once you listen and we’re in agreement, we commit to what we’ve said. So, dictatorship will not come into place,” she says.
She has seen the approach applied even at director and vice-president level, where employees can question the reasoning behind assignments.
“One thing I was shocked to see here is anytime you’re given work, you are allowed to ask your manager, ‘Why am I doing this? Why is this important?’” She says.
Ms Kinyanjui’s career began with a decision to abandon an interest in chemistry for business. Growing up in a family of seven children, with entrepreneurial parents, she was exposed early to the demands of running a business.
She says she was good at chemistry and initially expected to pursue it at university. A conversation with a teacher, however, prompted her to reconsider.
“I always thought I would pursue something in chemistry,” she says. “I had a candid conversation [with the teacher] and that’s when he brought up the conversation about exploring business.”
She had already started studying for the Certified Public Accountant qualification before joining Strathmore University. Enjoying accounting, she opted for a Bachelor of Commerce degree instead of the chemistry course she had originally envisaged.
After graduating, she joined Hallmark Advertising and Marketing as a graduate trainee in 2017. Within three years, she had risen to head of finance, gaining experience that would shape her ambitions.
Her work brought her into contact with leaders from major corporate clients, including Unilever, Coca-Cola and Unga Group. Hallmark’s expansion into five other countries also exposed her to differences in how businesses operated across markets.
“I was seeing how different businesses or markets respond to certain things, and at that point, I was like, ‘Maybe I should try something more global as opposed to something in Africa,’” she says.
The desire for international exposure led her to apply for an MBA at Cornell University in the US, where she enrolled in August 2023.
When the time came to seek internships, she applied to Amazon. The selection process was competitive, even among her fellow MBA students.
“Out of a class of 283 people and so many interviews, I was the only one who was selected for the finance programme,” she says. “That was scary.”
“At times it feels like a dream,” she says. “It happens, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I don’t know what’s going on at this point.’”
Based in Seattle, Ms Kinyanjui works in Amazon’s Devices department, which handles products such as Fire TVs and speakers. Her responsibilities include advising leaders on investment decisions, assessing expected returns on investments and helping determine which products and business opportunities merit spending.
Her coverage extends to Canada and Mexico, and she currently handles about 12 devices, working with different business partners to assess their commercial prospects.
“I do annual and three-year strategic planning,” she says, adding that the work involves asking difficult questions about costs and potential risks.
She has also had to deal with a challenge most young executives face: leading people who may have more years of experience than she does.
“I’ve encountered people who felt I was too young to lead them,” she says.
But rather than constantly trying to prove herself, she says has learned to build trust by listening to colleagues, respecting their experience and being consistent in her decisions.
For her, leadership does not mean having every answer. It means being confident in what she brings to the role while remaining willing to learn from others.
Her parents’ businesses helped lay some of that foundation. Visiting their enterprises exposed her to the decisions involved in running a business, including situations in which someone had to take responsibility without waiting for others to step in.
“I’d go to [my parents’] businesses and see how they were doing,” she says. “At times you had to make decisions when no one [else] was there. Making decisions at that early age, she notes, helps hone leadership throughout your life. I still live by those lessons.”
Those experiences, combined with her professional progression, have shaped her understanding of leadership as a balance between conviction and openness to other perspectives.
Ms Kinyanjui acknowledges that technology is changing the role of executives, including in finance. Artificial intelligence tools, she says, help her handle some of the administrative work involved in reviewing spending requests and preparing business reports.
One tool helps her examine contracts, terms and other details associated with requests for expenditure. But the final assessment still requires her judgement.
“It will go through the contract, terms and everything,” she says. “My work is now to check: ‘Even though we have this budget, does it make sense for the business to really invest? Do we need it or can we move our energy into other things?’”
Another tool draws information from company systems, email and Slack to prepare monthly and quarterly business reports.
“I look at it as my assistant,” she says.
Her experience in the US has given her a different perspective on the business environment in Kenya. Comparing e-commerce in the two markets, she says American consumers benefit from established systems for checking products and addressing fraud.
“Here, there are so many systems that are set up. Before [a product] is online, like at Amazon or wherever, they’ve done so many checks,” she says. She adds that consumers who are defrauded have avenues through which they may seek to recover their losses.
For someone who has moved from a graduate trainee position in Nairobi to a finance management role at a global technology company, taking chances has been central to her journey.
She lives by the motto: “You miss 100 of the shots you don’t take.” “That helps me take bets on myself,” she says. “I can lose, it’s fine; I can get, it’s fine. So far, it’s proven to work.”
