Apple brings on Delta exec for online sales as Chomp cofounder to depart

Bob Kupbens discusses Delta Sky Media in 2013. | Source: Greg Harper via Vimeo

First spotted by AdAge on Tuesday, former Delta Airlines VP on marketing and digital commerce Bob Kupbens recently updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect a new position at Apple.

Kupbens is now a VP at Apple Online Retail, meaning he works under former Burberry CEO and current Apple SVP of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts, who left the clothier in October.

It is unclear what Ahrendts has in store for Kupbens, but the former Delta executive has held positions at consulting firm A.T. Kearney and Target, where he helped to roll out the retailer's online presence.

As for Chomp cofounder and CTO Cathy Edwards, TechCrunch reports she will leave Apple on April 11 to take time off and plan her next move. Apple picked Edwards up as part of the its $50 million acquisition of the app search engine in 2012, which brought the current iOS App Store's "app cards" layout. Earlier today, it was discovered that Apple has started testing "related" app search term suggestions, a feature likely based on Chomp's app discovery assets.

While at Apple, Edwards held a number of positions, the first being Head of Search and Measurement. Her LinkedIn profile notes this initial position was ""responsible for search systems across multiple Apple products enjoyed by hundreds of millions of users each day," including the App Store, iTunes and Maps.

Currently, Edwards is the Director of Evaluation and Quality of Apple's Maps team, a role she took on just as the then-new service was finding its footing. Initial reviews of Apple Maps were largely negative, with inaccurate data, graphical issues and a general lack of features.