Brian T. Olsavksy (MSIA '89, T)

Brian Olsavsky has served as SVP and chief financial officer at Amazon.com since 2015, helping to lead one of the most revolutionary and influential corporations of our time.

After joining the company in 2002, he held numerous senior financial positions that increased in responsibility with the burgeoning business, from head of Amazon Worldwide Operations Finance to VP Finance. Prior to Amazon, Olsavsky spent time in logistics at Fisher Scientific and finance at BF Goodrich.

Olsavsky grew up in Hershey, PA and earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. After a short time with Union Carbide, he came to the Tepper School of Business to earn his master’s, drawn by the school’s analytic focus, reputation for building on a technical background, and small, personal class size.

Olsavsky has remained an ardent supporter of the school. Among many other activities, he has been a member of the Tepper Business Board of Advisors since 2015, was a founding member of the Tepper Alumni Board from 2008-2014, is the founder and first president of the Seattle Alumni chapter, began Amazon’s recruiting relationship, and was instrumental in making the company the largest recruiter of students and alumni.

In addition, he and his wife Susan generously named a classroom in the new Tepper School Quad and established an endowed scholarship for MBA students. In May 2024 he was named to the Carnegie Mellon University Board of Trustees.

For his dedicated service and outstanding achievement, he was honored with the 2013 CMU Alumni Association’s Alumni Service Award and the 2019 Tepper School Alumni Achievement Award.

“It was a way of thinking, the skill set, the confidence. I really enjoyed it, really liked the curriculum and the size of the program. You come out with great training. In a school like Tepper, there’s nowhere to hide. It’s not like you’re sitting in a class of 2000 people just taking notes."