Okay, remember that super awkward moment on the Coldplay ‘kiss cam’? The one where a tech executive was caught with his employee, and a third woman looked totally mortified? Well, internet sleuths have been busy, and they’ve figured out who that embarrassed woman is! It’s Alyssa Stoddard, who just got promoted to a big HR role at Astronomer, days before she went to that concert with them.
Alyssa, now the Vice President of People at Astronomer, was totally caught off guard. You could see her on the big screen, blushing and nervously smiling. Meanwhile, the couple she was with were practically trying to disappear, scrambling to hide their faces! This all went down Wednesday night at the Foxborough, Massachusetts show, say those online sleuths.
Here’s the kicker: Alyssa got that big promotion from Kristin Cabot, who’s the company’s head of HR. And guess what? Kristin is the very person who was seen getting cozy with Astronomer’s CEO, Andy Byron, in the now-infamous video!
It turns out Alyssa and Kristin aren’t just new colleagues. They’ve actually worked together for years, hopping from company to company. We’re talking places like data analytics firms Neo4j and cybersecurity firm Proofpoint. They’ve got a long professional history, that’s for sure.
Kristin hired Alyssa just five months ago to lead People Operations and Strategy. And it was Kristin who announced Alyssa’s promotion just last week, in a super glowing LinkedIn post, no less. Kristin was clearly thrilled about Alyssa’s promotion. In that now-deleted LinkedIn post (someone thankfully grabbed a screenshot!), she wrote, “I’m incredibly proud to share that Alyssa Stoddard has been promoted to VP of People at Astronomer.” She went on to say she’d had “the true privilege” of working with Alyssa at four different companies. And get this: she praised Alyssa for her “extraordinary mix of empathy, operational excellence and unwavering integrity.” Kristin even called her “a thoughtful, values-driven partner who makes every team she touches stronger.”
Meanwhile, Alyssa herself had announced her hiring five months ago in her own LinkedIn post. But that post has since become a magnet for some pretty nasty comments, all about her being at that concert with Byron and Cabot. In her post, she’d excitedly written, “I’ve joined Kristin Cabot (Thornby) and the amazing People team at Astronomer, leading People Operations and Strategy! I’m honored to be part of this journey and can’t wait to see what lies ahead! Here’s to new beginnings and exciting opportunities.” But after the scandal broke, the comments quickly turned sour. As one person put it, “Not a good look to knowingly condone affairs.”
