Dive Brief:

• Amazon has hired Jamil Ghani, formerly Target's senior vice president of enterprise strategy and innovation, to spearhead its Prime operations abroad, a source told Recode. Requests for comment from Retail Dive to Amazon and Target were not immediately returned.

• Ghani, who served under Target Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Casey Carl, led a “150-person team spanning strategy, innovation, merchandising, business development, and technology that identify and build what’s next for Target,” according to his LinkedIn profile. He also acted as a mentor at Target's TechStars startup incubation effort. Moving forward, Ghani will report to Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime.

• Amazon went to war with Target last year over the hire of Amazon former supply chain executive Arthur Valdez, filing a lawsuit alleging that his move to Target violated the terms of the non-competition agreement he signed when he began work at Amazon 16 years earlier. The companies later settled the matter, and Target also hired Amazon supply chain executive Preston Mosier later that year. 

Dive Insight:

Amazon may be reaching a saturation point in its U.S. Prime membership — a massive customer base that pays $99 per year for a bevy of perks, including free two-day shipping on many items, same-day delivery in many areas, as well as award-winning streaming entertainment, photo storage, advantages through its branded credit card, and more. 

Domestic Prime members are a sticky, relatively wealthy pack of 49 million, or 44% of U.S. households, according to financial services firm Cowen & Co., which predicts that number could jump up to 50% very soon, and eventually could exceed 60 million households nationwide. Last summer, Amazon launched Prime in India, where it is among the top e-commerce players, as well as a modified version of the program in China in October. 

Ghani will be expected to expand Prime's scope and appeal in both markets. His background suggests he's up to the task: Target, while not a tech juggernaut on par with Amazon, has nevertheless demonstrated a penchant for innovation and a determination to revamp its supply chain to smooth its inventory and fulfillment operations for stores and online sales.

Tech is generally a forte at Target, and its Cartwheel mobile application, which recently expanded into a rewards program, is widely viewed as a success story. But the retailer's e-commerce sales have lagged after surging in early 2016. And in another sign of the continued disruption wrought by e-commerce and omnichannel retail — and amid fierce competitive and still-evolving fulfillment approaches in the space — Jason Goldberger, Target's chief digital officer and president of Target.com, abruptly left the company in September after being the first to take on the newly created position last May. 

Target is not alone. There’s also been an ongoing shakeup in Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s tech and e-commerce offices since its $3.3 billion acquisition last year of e-commerce startup Jet, and just last week, Nordstrom Chief Technology Officer Kumar Srinivasan exited the department store retailer after less than a year on the job.