Growing brands and careers: Guan’s decade at Amazon

Meet Guan Lin, Head of Growth Sales for the Amazon Ads team in China. With more than a decade of working at Amazon, Guan shares how he’s made the most of his time here to carve out a varied career.

Let’s start at the beginning. How long have you been at Amazon, and what do you do?

I’ve been at Amazon for more than ten years now. One of the great things is that if your current job is getting a little too familiar, there are so many opportunities to try something new. You can move teams, countries, roles. That’s one of the reasons people stay so long. Right now, I lead the China Global Growth Sales team. Our job is to help Chinese advertisers bring their products to customers all over the world.

What do you enjoy about working at Amazon Ads?

It’s a very different experience from my previous role at Amazon, when I mostly worked with local teams. Amazon Ads is truly global. I get to work closely with colleagues across the UK, US, Europe, Japan, India, and Vietnam, which has really broadened my perspective. It’s also exciting because I get to help brands grow, not just with Ads but through connections with other Amazon businesses like AWS cloud solutions.

What opportunities come with joining Amazon?

There are two big ones. First, the chance to have a very varied career with the opportunity to try different roles. And second, the chance to grow your skills. That might mean improving how you build networks or getting better at understanding how you can bring innovative solutions to your clients. You learn to think big—not just about ads but about brand growth, infrastructure, and everything else that comes with scaling globally.

Can you tell us more about the Amazon Leadership Principles?

When new team members join, the first thing I do is explain our Leadership Principles, which guide everything we do at Amazon. Three in particular stand out for me. First is “Bias for Action.” If we move too slowly, we miss opportunities. Second is “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit.” I want people to speak up and share their opinions before we make decisions, and then we all move forward together. Third is “Dive Deep,” which means really understanding the data, listening to our advertisers, and using both to figure out the best solutions.

These principles help us stay focused and take smart risks. They also give everyone clarity on what’s right for our customers and the company and what’s expected of you. In such a big organization, this helps everyone move in the same direction.

How do you work with other teams to support your customers?

We have a very tight feedback loop. Our team gathers voice-of-customer insights, which we pass to our partners, especially our Sales Go-To-Market team. They help translate those needs into features and priorities for our products. Sometimes the product team will even speak directly with advertisers. We’re always building together.

What surprised you most when you joined Amazon?

The culture! Especially the way we debate. At Amazon, disagreement is encouraged—people challenge each other—and it can feel uncomfortable at first. But what surprised me even more was how well everyone gets along after the debate. It’s not personal; it’s about finding the best solution based on data and logic. Once you get used to that, it’s actually very empowering.

How is your team re-imagining advertising?

There are two big ways. First, by helping Chinese advertisers move beyond just performance marketing. Many are very ROI-focused, so they only invest in lower-funnel tactics. But that limits their brand potential and their ability to grow premium businesses globally. We’re helping shift the mindset toward long-term brand building.

Second, we’re co-developing AI-driven products that help both internal sales teams and advertisers make better decisions based on data. Clients love it because they couldn’t build that kind of tech on their own. Adoption is already high, and there’s more to come.

And finally, how do you engage with your advertisers?

Trust and integrity are core. We’re always transparent, whether it’s reporting on campaign performance or offering multiple options instead of just one recommendation. We’re also constantly inventing. Right now, we’re working a lot with Amazon Marketing Cloud, which gives advertisers powerful tools to evolve their strategies. We never stop improving.