Ken Eisner
Director of Worldwide Education Programs
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Santa Fe, NM USA
“Take every opportunity to learn, experience, and explore as a serious opportunity for you. We make life rich when we dive into the here and now.”
Videos
By Roadtrip NationKen Eisner
Milestones
My road in life has taken me all over.
I went to public school in Philadelphia, then public school in New Jersey, before completing two years at a prep school prior to college.
After college, I moved to Colorado and worked on a few entrepreneurial ventures—I had moved away from New York to get out of the “rat race.”
I went back to school for a master’s degree in urban policy—at this time, the internet was starting to boom, so I added an MBA degree and joined a startup company.
I worked as the vice president of marketing at Varsity Books, a startup that sold textbooks online—my work in brand awareness pushed the company to the most visited site among the college demographic.
Getting deeper into the technology industry, I moved onto a nonprofit that leveraged technology to provide digital adoption opportunities for children in low-income communities around the world.
After spending some time in tech, I realized that working in education—as I did with Varsity Books—was what I felt most attached to and where I wanted to be.
I joined Amazon Web Services when it was starting to get big—the social contribution a company makes is important to me and I saw that AWS had the capacity to make a huge impact on education at scale.
I worked my way up to director of worldwide education programs at AWS—I was recognized as 2018 AWS Worldwide Public Sector “Impact Person of the Year.”
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Career
Director of Worldwide Education Programs
I lead a program that provides students and teachers with resources to propel students into careers.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Education
Technology
Helping People
Day to Day
My primary responsibility is to lead a grant-based program that provides students and teachers around the world with resources to propel students into careers. The program holds hundreds of thousands of students and over 10,000 teachers at over 2,400 institutions in more than 200 countries and territories. At Amazon, we present our ideas in six-page narratives. I'll present my narratives for my program and my colleagues will question and critique it. I also do the same for others' narratives.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for college students
Blend school and work if you have the opportunity to. Take advantage of any opportunity you have to learn while you're working. Not only will you be acquiring additional knowledge, but you'll gain invaluable skills in time management and critical thinking.
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Society in General:
"You should have your future planned out."
Challenges I Overcame
School Stress
