AppleInsider Staff
In the fluid world of tech hires, two changes were recently recorded to Apple's roster as the company hired ex-Delta Airlines VP Bob Kupbens to bolster online sales, while Chomp cofounder Cathy Edwards is scheduled to depart in April.
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.
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Angela Ahrendts has a lot more know-how than to just run Apple's retail and online stores. I understand that she has a sense of fashion and knowledge of the fashion business that, I think, could be valuable in other product areas. Seems to me that Kupbens could end up running the day-to-day retail business while Ahrendts is off advising on higher level things.
IMHO, Apple couldn't give Edwards meaningful enough work to keep her interested in staying so she's moving on.
Apple hired Bob Kupbens? Hooray! Have always been a big fan of his. Bob was the driver behind Delta partnering with Apple to launch the airline's official app (which has been pretty successful, feature rich and regularly updated). Hope he brings his loyal lieutenants as there's some great (but under appreciated) talent at his past employer. My gut tells me this move was influenced by Delta's recent Microsoft partnerships. Some strong voices in the IT department were ignored to make Nokia point-of-sale terminals and Surfaces in the cockpit happen. The upper executives went their own way in secret and I hope they feel the price for their greed. @AI - It's a quibble but one that drives me crazy: the airline known as Delta's correct branding is "Delta Air Lines". They added the extra space to make themselves unique but it just ends up being mistyped a lot. ; )
Forget the ITV set and iWatch, the iPlane is Apple's next big thing!
[quote name="jungmark" url="/t/172206/apple-brings-on-delta-exec-for-online-sales-as-chomp-cofounder-to-depart#post_2500634"]Forget the ITV set and iWatch, the iPlane is Apple's next big thing![/quote] The Find My Plane option on iCloud will come in handy... Too soon ?
[quote name="justp1ayin" url="/t/172206/apple-brings-on-delta-exec-for-online-sales-as-chomp-cofounder-to-depart#post_2501816"] The Find My Plane option on iCloud will come in handy... Too soon ?[/quote] Ooh, I think you're going to crash and burn with that comment.