Ex-Amazon Prime Boss Robbie Schwietzer Recently Left Role at Groupon

Top Groupon executive Robbie Schwietzer left the deals company recently, Re/code has learned, after a two-year stint running its global customer service and content-creation teams, two sectors that were just hit hard by job cuts.

Groupon’s hire of Schwietzer in 2013 was seen as a coup because he had come from a 10-year career at Amazon, where he ran the company’s popular Amazon Prime membership program. Schwietzer told Re/code on Wednesday that he decided to leave Groupon because his role ended up including more travel than he enjoyed and that he missed running a team in Seattle, where he lived even after taking the role with Chicago-based Groupon.

After carrying out cuts in his group in the fall, Schwietzer said he decided it was time to find a new job at a company in Seattle.

“That’s really all it came down to,” he said. “I’m still bullish [on Groupon] and I think Rich [Williams] will do great things there as their new CEO.”

Groupon announced on Tuesday that Williams, the company’s COO, was replacing co-founder Eric Lefkofsky as CEO. The stock dropped 26 percent on Wednesday to below $3 after Williams announced plans to drastically increase marketing spending, which weakened guidance for the coming quarters.

Schwietzer said he’s looking to join a company based in Seattle and wouldn’t rule out a return to Amazon.

“I could do a boomerang,” he said, using the phrase popular inside the company for executives who re-join Amazon after time away.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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