From Amazon Senior Manager to STEM Founder: Seun Phillips Returns to His Own Business

Seun Phillips, the 42-year-old founder of Stemnetics, spent a year at Amazon Robotics as a senior partnerships manager, earning a six-figure salary while overseeing collaborations for the company’s $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund. A chance conversation with a school principal sparked the decision to leave Amazon and devote his full attention to Stemnetics, a hands-on STEM program he started in 2014. Leveraging lessons learned at Amazon—customer obsession, frugality and rapid execution—he expanded the nonprofit-turned-business into California, shipping teaching materials and training instructors.

Stemnetics now employs more than 35 people and operates over 30 programs across Michigan and California. Phillips says the most rewarding part of his work is seeing students excited in the classroom, confirming his belief that early STEM exposure builds problem-solving skills.