Astronomer has a surprising new face as the company navigates a social media firestorm.
Actress and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow appeared in a cheeky Q&A video posted by the IT company on social media Friday night after two of its top staffers resigned in the wake of an extremely public “cheating” scandal.
Astronomer’s CEO, Andy Byron, and the executive in charge of human resources, Kristin Cabot, both resigned after the pair was caught by surprise cuddling and smiling on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in Massachusetts last week.
Their smiles fell when they realized they were on camera, as Cabot covered her face and spun away from the camera, and Byron ducked out of the frame.
“Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” lead singer Chris Martin joked in the clip.
Paltrow, who is also Martin’s ex-wife, has been hired “on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer,” she said in the video.
“Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer some of the most common ones,” Paltrow continued in the video.
As text reading “OMG! What the actual …” appears on screen, Paltrow reassures viewers that “Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow.”
“We’ve been thrilled so many people have a new-found interest in data workflow automation.”
As a question about the social media team appears on screen, Paltrow jumps in again: “Yes! There is still room available at our Beyond Analytics event in September.”
“We will now be returning to what we do best: delivering game-changing results for our customers,” she said, thanking viewers for their interest in the company.
The New York-based company, which provides big companies with a platform that helps them organize their data, was previously relatively obscure.
With files from the Associated Press
