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THANK YOU FOR INVADING MY SPACE
Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Chadd SJ Ciccarelli is a driven startup enthusiast who is deeply passionate about entrepreneurship. He hails from a blue-collar, self-made family, which instilled in him a strong work ethic and inspired him to start his own business while still in high school. With a keen interest in product development, Chadd co-founded a water gardening retail and wholesale business with a partner to help pay for his tuition. The venture proved to be successful, enabling him to sell the business upon graduation and pay off his student loans.
Chadd graduated with High Honours, College Honours, Phi Kappa Phi, and Phi Beta Kappa after earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Chadd demonstrated his commitment to philanthropy by establishing a scholarship fund to support future generations of students at the Dietrich College of Humanities & Science.
hadd has been an integral part of Amazon since 2011, having held various positions across the advertising, consumer, and AWS organizations in Los Angeles, London, Seattle, and currently in Sydney. He initially joined the Adzinia team (now Amazon Ads) in Los Angeles, working on advertising campaigns for video games and consumer electronics. In 2012, Chadd moved to London and focused on advertising technology and connected devices for the A9 organization, where he established some of the most significant mobile partnerships across Europe. He then moved to the newly-formed Amazon Clicks org and built a sales team in Europe focused on sponsored product adoption and utilization across sellers and vendors. Chadd relocated to Seattle in 2017 to lead the Direct-to-Consumer Brands team and in 2019, he became the Head of Business Development and Expansion in Sydney, overseeing two consumer programs - Private Brands and Launchpad.
Since his arrival in Sydney, Chadd has played a vital role in helping start-ups grow and succeed through the Launchpad program. He has created initiatives for SMBs, such as the Amazon Launchpad Innovation Grants, which offers grant packages to organizations with innovative products that support Australians through the pandemic. This initiative, which started in 2020, has contributed to the creation of some of the world's most innovative start-ups.
Chadd's efforts have helped numerous start-ups thrive on Amazon, and he continues to invest in start-ups outside of Amazon as well. His contributions have been recognized in various media outlets and Amazon press releases. Through the Launchpad program, Chadd has made it easier for brands to sell their products on Amazon and get them discovered globally. In 2020 and 2021, the program provided grant packages and other support to several innovative start-ups, including WAW Handplanes, Ethicool Books, Niki's Baby Wipes, Great Wrap, and Crockd
As of 2022, Chadd has become a member of the AWS Innovation Advisory team. His role involves leveraging Amazon's culture of innovation to aid some of the largest enterprises worldwide in transforming their approach to designing, developing, launching new products, and pioneering the use of cloud services.
Chadd has emerged as a prominent leader in the global tech industry, possessing expertise in e-commerce and cloud computing. He has helped numerous small and medium-sized businesses share their brand story with Amazon's vast customer base of over 300 million people worldwide. Additionally, he has assisted several enterprises in adopting Amazon's best practices to leverage AWS cloud services. Apart from his contributions to the tech industry, Chadd is also a well-known angel investor and founded Blue Bear Head to invest his own funds into a diverse range of startups. In his free time, he focuses on improving his skills as a progressive guitar player.
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