As Vice President Insights, Planning and Technology for Amazon Devices & Services, Enerino “Rino” Caruccio ’84, is a man whose career is immersed in finance and data. He is also most assuredly a people person.

As the oldest child of Italian immigrants raised in South Burlington, he left UVM not only with a business degree, but a lifelong fascination with human dynamics. He’s garnered an innate perception of what makes people, and teams within an organization, tick.

Rino says. “At UVM I was pleasantly surprised what I learned outside of the classroom, beyond my academic experience. I joined a fraternity, was part of the Interfraternity Council, and served as a residence assistant. I graduated UVM with a better understanding of people and an appreciation that they are all different. I learned how to approach people and problems from the perspective of organizational team dynamics. I got a crash course in leadership that was very valuable.”

After graduation, Rino embarked on his career initially at General Electric (GE), where he worked in various finance leadership roles in the U.S., Asia, and Europe … and where he began using that human approach developed at UVM.

"I was watching successful finance leaders at GE, and the one thing I observed is they weren’t just functional experts.  They were all fluent in how to make the numbers tie to the business and use that understanding to influence and drive strategy. I took away that a successful leader is able to go beyond financial data and connect the dots. That became my mantra early on and one I adopted as I made decisions throughout my career. I gained an appreciation of the role of finance as not just a numbers game, but how to get an organization to build and deliver. That was a key moment for me.”

He continued. “An example of that was when I was working in Florence, Italy leading financial analysis.  I had already developed some serious financial experience, but felt I lacked the additional aspects of the finance role to become a more complete leader.  So, I took a job in Indiana as the finance manufacturing lead in the largest North American plastics facility we had. It forced me to learn a different aspect of business and taught me how to understand manufacturing and drive the change the business needed.”

Rino joined Amazon in 2006, at a time when founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was part of the interview and hiring process. Caruccio noted “Jeff is known for asking challenging questions when he interviewed candidates.  With me he asked ‘Do you consider yourself a lucky person?’

Interestingly I had already subscribed to a philosophy that has been attributed to a Ted Kennedy quote where he was asked if he felt the Kennedy name was cursed. He replied something to the effect of ‘bad luck is something you endure, and good luck is something you make.’  It’s how I had been approaching my life already, and that’s how I answered Jeff Bezos.  I guess it worked, since I got the job!”

Rino, who has been with Amazon over sixteen years, has made his own luck applying his human-centric, authentic leadership approach to the teams he runs, and the leaders he is developing.

He describes it this way. “Organizations will recognize when you’re not being authentic. That authenticity is fundamental to gaining alignment. Early on in my career, I made some mistakes as I looked at leaders and tried to emulate them. It didn’t work because it quickly became apparent, I was not being who I was. I was trying to portray a different person. I realized I had to lead within the lens of who I am. What’s crucial though is understanding authenticity doesn’t mean just accepting ‘this is the way I am’. It is about recognizing ‘what more can I do? What are the things I need to work on to become a better leader?’

It's also about being authentic to your audience because audiences will be different. There is no one size fits all. You must be able to recognize what motivates others, understand what they are looking for and how are they thinking about their goals, and that establishes trust. Different organizations are filled with different people and different ways of operating. That’s the beauty, that’s the challenge of leadership. It’s what makes me excited and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I come to work, because I’m never there, never perfect. It’s the searching and seeking and going to that next level that motivates me.”

In his role at Amazon, Rino and his team are responsible for developing, implementing, and delivering analysis and insights that supports the growth and profitability of Amazon’s worldwide Devices & Services portfolio. “I tell my team that we should think of ourselves as if the business is a car, and our role is the dashboard” says Rino.

“We must connect ourselves with different parts of the business (car), and provide readable, insightful information that the business leader (driver) can react to. You want to create a mechanism that is not permanent, but evolves with the needs of the business. We have to be able to switch out some of the dashboard dials while this car is moving fast.”

While some leaders get paralyzed making decisions, I don’t have a problem jumping in. If I have a good concept of what the customer needs, I’m willing to take a risk and make a decision, because I believe change doesn’t happen without a little bit of churn. I encourage my team to not wait until they’ve got it all figured out, but go ahead and launch and get things in customers hands a little sooner so that you can iterate quickly with real feedback.

My philosophy is you can learn more from making a decision than from analyzing the hell out of something. We naturally align to where we’re comfortable and being creative requires a little bit of discomfort and risk-taking. Personally, I would rather strike out swinging so to speak, than play it too safe. So make the decision!”

Looking to the future, Rino feels Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a huge opportunity, along with expanding the services offered by Amazon.

“Amazon is a product-driven company, but there are a lot of services we continue to develop. There are services we provide now, and that service model is very powerful because when you deliver superior service to your customers, you get strong engagement. And when you get strong engagement, you develop enough customer trust to continue to execute on opportunities that would be natural extension and continue delighting customers.

With Amazon Alexa and AI, our challenge is how do we make her an essential part of your day? How do we get customers to engage with her and make the use of AI ubiquitous? It’s a question of balance. To make Alexa intelligent she needs to listen and learn. But listening and learning includes an element of privacy.  So the question is where to draw the line? We want Alexa to learn as much as she can, but also don’t want to erode trust with customers or infringe on privacy. We must find that balance. AI is a powerful tool, but it has to be done within the framework of security, privacy, and respect for the individual.”

Whatever the future holds for Rino, you can be sure it involves nurturing, encouraging and motivating people. As a member of the Grossman School of Business’ Board of Advisors and frequent campus visitor, his parting message for UVM students echoed his philosophy.

“For students here, know you are at a great place in your lives. It is a challenge now, and that can be scary and filled with anxiety, but there is opportunity in front of you. Embrace the opportunity and don’t let others distract you. When you feel something, go for it. Work hard and do everything you can. And always be authentic to yourself.”