Her Story
About Tanya
Tanya Bennett serves as the U.S. Head of Sales for Distributed Locations at Amazon Business, a role she has held for nearly eight years. In this position, she focuses on delivering sales experiences that simplify procurement for customers, identify solutions to enhance efficiencies, and introduce innovative products, features, and technology. Bennett leads the Amazon Business Culture Committee within the commercial organization. With no formal degree, she credits her professional development to the School of Hard Knocks and various sales training certifications from employers. Outside of her primary role, she volunteers with the Colorado Royals, a competitive non-profit youth fast-pitch softball organization, and supports animal sanctuaries and local businesses through sponsorships and farmers market initiatives. Bennett attributes her success to being creative and persistently asking questions to understand and configure solutions, never accepting no as final. She values integrity and transparency in all dealings, along with achieving harmony between work and personal life rather than strict balance. Her advice to young women entering the field emphasizes embracing unique perspectives and qualities instead of conforming to male-dominated norms.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tanya
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being creative and always asking questions like 'why does this work?' or 'how can I configure this?' I don't take no for an answer - it's often 'not yet' - and I figure things out. This aligns perfectly with Amazon Business's leadership principle of 'learn and be curious,' which I fit into really well.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've received is to be more confident in the room and bring up my good ideas and vast experience, even compared to peers. I have diverse experiences not everyone gets, so I should be vocal instead of assuming others are smarter or have more to offer, and not make assumptions.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
For a young lady entering this field, learn early what makes you successful. I've worked in male-dominated industries from a young age and learned I don't have to be like them to succeed. I bring unique qualities and traits because I'm different, and I have a unique perspective as a female. Be comfortable with what you bring to the table, enhance those traits, adapt them, and grow them instead of hiding them.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge in Amazon Business is that we're still fairly new, so there's a lot of education and awareness needed that we're different than retail Amazon.com. Everyone knows the big Amazon umbrella, but we need to get out to business organizations and provide that education. The opportunity is to scale and innovate quickly on behalf of our customers, developing more of what they're asking for since we're still new.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is most important - being transparent about what's truly going on, whether with internal people, companies, or customers. There's never a reason to make something what it's not. Ethics hold a lot of value. Also, giving the right amount to home and work; it's not about work-life balance but harmony where they work together and blend. I try to work for organizations that support that.
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