Jan. 28, 1997-- Amazon.com today announced the addition of five vice presidents to its senior management team: Rick Ayre, vice president and executive editor; Mark Breier, vice president of marketing; Joy Covey, chief financial officer; Oswaldo Dueas, vice president of operations; and Scott Lipsky, vice president of business expansion.

Amazon.com opened its virtual doors in July 1995 and is the leading bookstore on the Web, offering the world's largest selection of books. Over its 18-month history, the company has been building a management team that now includes senior executives with experience from a variety of leading technology and Fortune 500 companies.

"We're bringing on board the management we need to cement and expand Amazon.com's leadership position in online commerce," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com's founder and CEO. "If we're to build a lasting and important company, we must have a world-class management team."

The new additions to Amazon.com's management team are listed below:

Rick Ayre, 47, is vice president and executive editor, with responsibility for the editorial content and design of the Amazon.com Web site. Ayre came to Amazon.com in September 1996 from PC Magazine, the leading Ziff-Davis publication, where he was executive editor for technology.

He was responsible for the print coverage of online technology and directed PC Magazine's online services, including the PC Magazine Online Web site and PC MagNet, part of ZD Net. ZD Net, with PC Magazine as its cornerstone, has grown to become one of the most popular sites on the Web, ranking among the most popular Web sites, according to the 100Hot Web Sites (www.100hot.com).

During his five years at PC Magazine, Ayre also served as executive editor for software and as technical director for software in PC Magazine Labs. Before joining PC Magazine, Ayre served as chief of information resources management at the Highland Drive VAMC, a 750-bed hospital in Pittsburgh. Ayre holds a B.A. in Sociology from Drury College and did Ph.D. work in Psychiatric Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Mark Breier, 37, will join Amazon.com as vice president of marketing on Jan. 31, 1997. He will be responsible for corporate marketing and sales. From 1994 to 1996 Breier was vice president of marketing at Cinnabon World Famous Cinnamon Rolls, where he established the marketing department and contributed to annual sales growth of more than 30%.

Prior to joining Cinnabon, Breier managed core brands and led new product introductions at Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream (1988 to 1994), Kraft Inc. (1986 to 1988) and Parker Brothers (1985 to 1986). From 1981 to 1984 Breier was president and co-founder of Amazing Events Unlimited, which specialized in entertainment and promotional events. Breier holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

Joy Covey, 33, joined Amazon.com in December of 1996 as chief financial officer; she is responsible for finance, planning, administration, and human resource activities. From 1991 to 1995 Covey was chief financial officer of Digidesign, where she was part of the management team that built the company valuation from $20 million to $200+ million and achieved more than 50% annual sales growth.

During her tenure, she managed a successful IPO and negotiated and executed a merger with Avid Technology, a $400 million revenue digital media technology company. After the merger, she served as Vice President of Business Development and as Vice President of Operations for Avid's Broadcast Division.

Prior to her work at Digidesign, she was a Mergers & Acquisitions Associate with Wasserstein Perella & Co. and a Certified Public Accountant at Arthur Young & Company. Covey holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she graduated magna cum laude; an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where was designated a Baker Scholar (top 5% in the class); and a B.S., summa cum laude, in business administration from California State University Fresno. Covey is a CPA and a member of the bar in California.

Oswaldo F. Dueas, 50, is vice president of operations and is responsible for warehouse and customer service management. Dueas brings to Amazon.com more than 20 years of experience with Federal Express, where he played a key role in its growth from inception to its development as the world's largest express transportation company.

At Federal Express he held managing director positions, in which he was responsible for managing all regional operations, in New York, Miami (which included Puerto Rico and the Caribbean), and Mexico, in addition to a variety of other positions. Prior to joining Amazon.com in January of 1997, Dueas was vice president of the Latin America Division of International Service System Inc., the largest integrated service company in Latin America.

Dueas was responsible for sales, marketing, operations and customer relations in the division and managed several thousand employees. Before joining ISS, he was president, director general of National Vision Associates in Mexico, where he had total responsibility for the national vision retail business in Mexico and managed optical retail outlets within 23 CIFRA stores and 14 Walmart stores throughout the country.

Scott Lipsky, 32, is vice president of business expansion and responsible for corporate expansion and development of new products and services. Before joining Amazon.com in July 1996, Lipsky was the chief information officer of the superstore and college bookstore divisions of Barnes & Noble, where he was responsible for overall systems development and operations management for the two divisions.

Lipsky was also founder and president of Omni Information Group, a Dallas-based consulting, software development and systems integration firm that serviced its proprietary retail operations solutions to the specialty retail chain market. Before launching Omni, Lipsky spent five years heading the Information Systems department at Babbage's, a Dallas-based consumer software retail chain that became part of Neostar Retail Group.

During his tenure at Babbage's, he designed, then led, the development and deployment of the first totally integrated client-server retail chain management system.

Shel Kaphan, 44, is vice president of development. Kaphan joined Amazon.com in October 1994 and is responsible for development and maintenance of Amazon.com's Web site. Prior to joining Amazon.com, he held senior engineering positions at Kaleida Labs, Frox and Lucid and has worked for the past 20 years designing hardware and software systems and services.

Kaphan holds a B.A. in mathematics, cum laude, from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Amazon.com is headquartered in Seattle and is privately held. Amazon.com is the leading bookstore on the Web, with the world's largest selection of books. The Internet-only bookstore, offers a catalog of 1.1 million titles, easy-to-use search and browse features, e-mail services, Web-based credit card payment and direct shipping to customers.

Amazon.com's name pays homage to the Amazon River. Just as the Amazon River is more than six times the size of the next largest river in the world, Amazon.com offers more than six times the number of titles found in the largest bookstore.