Why data is the foundation for this Amazon leader’s HR success

As HR increasingly leans into its role as a strategic business partner, data is playing an outsized role. However, for the function to maximize the value of data in developing and executing a talent strategy, people professionals must also recognize the power of storytelling to drive results, along with the imperative of relationship building.

Those elements underlie how Drew Howell approaches HR leadership. Howell, global HR leader at World Wide Fulfillment by Amazon and North America Selling Business Programs and one of this year’s HR’s Rising Stars, joined the online retailer in 2022. He was coming off a decade of leading HR work across the cruise and hospitality industries, including at Norwegian Cruise Line and Carnival Corp., where he held increasingly senior and global roles. His contributions to Carnival’s talent strategy include reducing recruiting spend by about $1.5 million and designing and launching a new ATS credited with slashing time-to-hire by more than one-third.

See also: Introducing HR’s Rising Stars for 2025

Howell’s demonstrable impact has continued at Amazon, where his work has driven a 15% increase in middle-management mobility, reduced spending by tens of millions, boosted employee engagement by up to 10% and resulted in a nearly 99% retention of top talent among the division’s 4,900 employees.

In Howell’s Rising Stars nomination, Renee Banks, worldwide head of HR, Amazon Seller Business, writes that his “ability to navigate complex stakeholder relationships while driving transformational change positions him as a future CHRO-caliber leader capable of leading through technological disruption and rapid business evolution.”

When Howell decided he was ready for a pivot from the cruise industry, knocking on the door of Amazon was a “no-brainer,” he says, as the size and scale of the retail giant were enticing for someone eager to continue to make an impact. His experience leading global teams has proved integral, as has his ability to leverage data for talent results.

“You need to have the data to connect what’s actually happening in the business to what the outcome needs to be,” he says, noting insights on historical trends alongside predictive analysis can help HR professionals “bring their leaders along, understand why you’re recommending a certain path. You have to be able to use data to tell the story.”

Telling a “compelling” story using data, while prioritizing stakeholder management, Howell says—especially in an organization as “heavily matrixed” as his—helps HR navigate change and keep a people-centric agenda at the forefront. Importantly, he notes, talent strategy success is most attainable when HR goals support broader organizational objectives.

“I have to make sure the work we’re doing marries up to our roadmap—that we really think through what we’re driving toward and align to a North Star,” he says.

Integrating gen AI into an Amazon business

That mindset was integral as World Wide Fulfilment by Amazon, through which sellers outsource order fulfillment to Amazon, ran into lagging operational effectiveness. Earlier this year, Howell worked with other leaders to integrate generative AI into business operations. Rolled out in 14 pilots across the organization, the project sought to embed gen AI throughout daily operations and drive efficiencies—with significant results.

One project, for instance, that used gen AI to power a Java migration took just hours—compared to what would have been 50 days for human developers. An inventory team working on an upgrade leveraged the tech to reduce its timeline from a month to one week, while a transportation team sped software development by up to 40%.

Howell says it was an obvious imperative that the business turn to gen AI to improve productivity and business outcomes.

“We would have been tone deaf to not think that gen AI is the most topical issue facing our workforce and the organization as a whole at the moment,” he says. “We were at a point where we recognized that gen AI was going to be a defining force of how we do what we do.”

Embracing technology

Howell’s focus was on “untangling” and reimagining the work processes that had been used in the past in order to welcome gen AI, while creating the “right environment” that would allow humans and AI to work effectively alongside one another.

Related: As the machine-human workforce emerges, it’s time to rethink management

Part of that work involved boosting use of Amazon’s internal gen AI tool, Amazon Q, which now has a more than 70% adoption rate across the organization.

Ensuring workers understand how the technology can help augment their work, and giving them the space to learn and grow as the organization goes through its own AI journey, has been key to countering any resistance to AI use.

“But, by and large,” Howell says, “I feel quite lucky that we’ve got an organization of people who are really embracing this technology and working toward building it into the work they’re doing.”

A multi-pronged approach to boosting employee engagement

Data was critical as Howell and his team worked to drive employee engagement, with analysis showing lags in such areas as communication, collaboration and recognition.

In three months, Howell developed an Employee Engagement and Strategic Projects Team to guide the response, and three months later, he rolled out Learning and Development Days. Its hybrid format connected employees to skills-building and AI integration sessions, as well as opened connections with senior leaders. Howell engineered a new employee recognition program alongside a tool that gives leaders more visibility into employee sentiment and delivers real-time recommendations.

Employee perceptions of recognition jumped by 9%, communication by more than 6% and collaboration by 5.5%.

“When you look at employee engagement data, it can be a maze,” Howell says. “We worked through the data to be able to tell a story: ‘We believe here, here and here, there’s opportunity for us to move the needle.’ And we went after it.”

Learning through connection

While Howell and his team are leveraging data-driven insights to guide their work, he noticed that some of the data may not have been providing a full picture of the “deeper, deeper issues” affecting the complex ecosystem of employees, leaders, sellers and the business.

“The only way to do that is by getting the people working on those products and services to talk to those sellers and actually connect so they really understand what’s going on,” he says.

That prompted an experiential learning initiative, connecting Amazon employees and leaders with sellers, allowing them all to “ingrain themselves in the business problems to be able to build better resolutions,” Howell says.

For instance, the Operation Obsession program took senior leaders on tours of Fulfillment Centers. Eighty-six percent of targeted leaders have participated, exceeding the 80% goal. At the same time, the Seller Obsession effort—guided by fireside chats, roundtable events and the launch of a Seller Advisory Council—has connected 47% of WW FBA employees with sellers, with a 90% target by the end of the year.

“Connecting with the sellers—really understanding what it is they’re going through—led to this amazing outcome of building better things for our sellers and on behalf of our customers,” Howell says. “It’s making such a difference.”

A ‘true Rising Star’

Former HR Honor Roll winner and one of this year’s HR’s Rising Stars judges, Heather Vogel, chief talent officer at Children’s Home Society of Florida, calls Howell a “trailblazing leader” who is “shaping the future of work at Amazon.”

“By weaving AI into daily operations, reimagining talent management to deepen leadership insight and launching bold engagement innovations, he’s transforming vision into impact by inspiring—and executing—a new era of people-centric, tech-powered HR,” Vogel says. “No doubt about it; Drew is a true Rising Star.”

Looking ahead, Howell says, he’s eager to continue solving for HR’s “big, meaty problems.”

“I want to be at the forefront of talent management, talent development—really building up the workforce of the future,” he says. “Supporting business leaders through that has been super-rewarding for me, and I want to continue doing that in some way, shape or form.”

Howell and the other 2025 HR’s Rising Stars will be honored during the inaugural HR Icons Awards Evening, taking place Sept. 15 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas as part of the HR Tech conference.