Joy Covey (April 25, 1963 September 18, 2013) was an American business executive, best known as

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

's first chief financial officer.

Early life and education

Covey was born in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, and grew up in

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ) is the most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region, and is located about south of San Francisco. San Mateo border ...

. She dropped out of school at 15 and moved to

Fresno, California Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

, and began working as a part-time grocery clerk. She later resumed her education and graduated from

California State University, Fresno California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers 60 ba ...

with a B.S. in Business/Accounting in 1982. In 1989, she graduated from Harvard's J.D./M.B.A. program.

Career

Before Amazon

After graduating from

, she began her career as an accountant at Arthur Young LLP. After graduating from Harvard, Covey briefly joined Wasserstein, Perella in New York as an investment banker before joining a technology company called

Digidesign Avid Audio (formerly Digidesign) is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum machin ...

. She helped take the company public and then sold it to another company called Avid, in Boston. In the mid-1990s, Covey moved back to Silicon Valley and interviewed at several promising companies like

Excite Excitation, excite, exciting, or excitement may refer to: * Excitation (magnetic), provided with an electrical generator or alternator * ''Exite'', a series of racing video games published by Nintendo starting with '' Excitebike'' * Excite (web por ...

and

Marimba The marimba ( ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the mari ...

. It was then that she heard about Amazon.

Amazon

In 1996, Covey joined Amazon, shortly becoming the CFO and then Chief Strategy Officer and raising over $500 million for the company. In 1999 she was #28 on Fortune magazine's list of "Most Powerful Women in Business" She left Amazon voluntarily in 2000, it was said that she "was tired of frenetic internet life". ''Fortune'' Magazine said of her:

Other women on our list, like Amazon.com's Joy Covey, learned from mothers who gained strength through suffering. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Joan Covey, who is Dutch by heritage, lived in Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies). When the Japanese invaded, she was sent to a prison camp for two years. She watched her own mother starve to death there. The hardship fostered an intense self-reliance, which daughter Joy has as well.

Personal life

Covey served as the treasurer of

Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicag ...

before her death, and had a son, Tyler. Covey was also a pilot.

Death

Covey died when she was struck by a delivery van while cycling on a road in California on Sept. 18, 2013. Covey's collision with a delivery van was previously reported, but the BuzzFeed News-ProPublica report revealed for the first time on December 23, 2019, that the van was carrying Amazon packages. The driver was a subcontractor for OnTrac, which Amazon was employing at the time to deliver packages, according to the report.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Covey, Joy Businesspeople from Boston Women chief financial officers Amazon (company) people Road incident deaths in California 1963 births 2013 deaths Harvard Law School alumni Harvard Business School alumni American chief financial officers California State University, Fresno alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen Cycling road incident deaths 21st-century American women