How Jackson Aimiuwu Went From Barely Having Interest In Tech To Head of Solutions Architecture At Amazon Web Services
Jackson Aimiuwu was 19 years old when he first got his hands on a computer, and now he is paving the way at a major technology company.
Aimiuwu attended the University of Calgary and earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science. His first year was the most challenging due to not having a computer, but it solidified his interest in the field. He also credits his cousin, who studied computer science and was able to bridge tech and business in his career.
Aimiuwu is now doing the same through his role at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Prior to this, his career trajectory included a role at Dell’s headquarters in Toronto, Canada, as a senior solutions architect and team lead (pre-sales), which gave him the opportunity to manage a team at Canadian Tire — the second-largest retailer in the country — from 2016 to 2019. He provided support to the company’s chief technology officer and helped build its first private cloud.
“They were trying to really change how they went to market to support customers. There’s a lot of threats that were happening from their business with online retailers, so they really wanted to modernize. And they knew that the current setup was just not cutting it. So, I helped them architect that whole day and was a trusted adviser to the CTO,” Aimiuwu told AFROTECH™.
Aimiuwu also adds that his team of about 50 individuals were able to rapidly innovate Canadian Tire’s operations from end to end including collaborations across business units, which encompassed 18,000 individuals.
He continued, “We came up with the right mechanisms for all these different teams to be able to collaborate. That actually turned out to be extremely useful when the pandemic hit in February… I enjoyed that so much. I was so passionate about it. And in my head, I’m like, ‘How can I do this at scale? How can I help more customers with this instead of just one customer?’ And, ultimately, that’s actually what led me to a role at AWS. I feel very lucky, and I get a chance to do that at scale across many different customers.”
He joined AWS’s Canada division in 2019 and has since received a couple of promotions. He now serves as head of solutions architecture for its U.S. FSI payments industry in San Francisco, CA, according to his LinkedIn profile. His focus is on financial services customers who facilitate payments, and he has managed teams that support sectors such as banking, manufacturing, retail, and mining.
At AWS, Aimiuwu has also utilized his leadership to carry out his goal to diversify the tech industry, which stems from his awareness of very few Black people in senior leadership roles. This motivated him to introduce and champion outreach to Black and minority students to educate them about the cloud and provide mentorship. Additionally through AWS’s Reach Back program, this has led to activations, such as a multi-city tour stop that paid for participants to be certified through AWS with free training for high school girls pursuing technology; and also women in universities to increase their exposure to architecture career pathways.
“We’ve been running this for close to four years now across Canada and the U.S. We’ve influenced more than a thousand women across universities all over North America to try to divert their attention to be aware of the solutions architecture role and to eventually prepare them to get roles either at AWS or our customers who are also looking for solutions architects to help them in their own transformations,” Aimiuwu mentioned.
AFROTECH™ Conference Speaker
Aimiuwu, who also served on the board of directors for Aimiuwu Hospital, a non-for-profit health care facility in Nigeria, will be taking center stage as a speaker at the upcoming 2025 AFROTECH™ Conference Oct. 27–31, being held in Houston, TX.
Be on the lookout for session details, and grab your ticket for THE Black tech event of the year here.
