Public Sector

Ex-Amazon UK boss lined up to chair Britain's competition watchdog

Business Secretary praises Doug Gurr's pro-growth agenda

Britain's competition regulator has tapped former Amazon UK chief Doug Gurr as preferred candidate for chair – a notable appointment given the watchdog's active investigations into major cloud providers.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said Gurr, as interim chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), had already heeded Prime Minister's Keir Starmer's advice to be more commercially minded.

"Under Doug Gurr's leadership as Interim Chair, the CMA is playing a key role in delivering the government's pro-growth agenda, ensuring the UK is a place where businesses can grow and invest with confidence," he said.

Gurr was appointed as interim chair of the CMA in January 2025 and has now been selected to complete a full five-year term following an open competition for the role.

The appointment may raise questions because Gurr's job history includes a four-year stint as head of Amazon UK. He started at Amazon in 2011 and was China country manager from 2014 to 2016. He became UK country manager in 2016. He left Amazon in 2020 to become director of the Natural History Museum.

Gurr said: "The government have been clear in their commitment to delivering economic growth and improving household prosperity. I have enjoyed my time at the CMA and can see a clear contribution we can make here through promoting competition and protecting consumers."

The CMA regulates the UK cloud and retail market, in which Amazon has a massive stake.

Last year, the CMA found that Microsoft and Amazon Web Services were using their dominance in ways that may harm UK cloud customers and proposed designating both with strategic market status (SMS). Following a 21-month investigation into the health of the local landscape, the regulator found that "competition is not working as well as it could." An SMS designation would allow the CMA to introduce targeted measures to tackle the concerns identified in its investigation.

In late 2024, Clare Barclay, who has worked for Microsoft in the UK since 1998, was appointed chair of the UK's industrial strategy group.

The Register has asked the Department for Business and Trade to comment. ®