"As Gwyneth Paltrow Said": Astronomer CEO On Moving On From Kiss Cam Scandal

It's been an eventful 10-day period for Astronomer, a Cincinnati-based data operations platform. The company appears to be slowly getting on its feet after a candid moment between its former CEO Andy Byron and Chief People Officer Kristen Cabot - both married to different people - shot them into the spotlight, and not the kind they expected.

Now, Pete DeJoy, the new interim CEO, has said that the Astronomer crew proved last week, in full colour, that "character shines brightest in tough moments".

"They supported our customers, each other, and our mission without missing a beat. I'm deeply grateful to work alongside such thoughtful, driven people," he wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Apart from thanking the employees at Astronomer, Mr DeJoy also spoke about their "Maximum Effort for their remarkable work" with Academy Award-winning actor Gwyneth Paltrow, whom the company hired as a "temporary spokesperson".

"As Gwyneth Paltrow said, now it's time for us to return to what we do best: delivering game-changing results for our customers. We look forward to what this next chapter holds for Astronomer," he concluded.

Mr Dejoy's post came two days after the tech firm released a tongue-in-cheek ad featuring Gwyneth Paltrow to manage the fallout.

Ms Paltrow, the former wife of Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, introduced herself as Astronomer's "very temporary spokesperson." Instead of addressing the scandal, she completely ignores the gossip and talks about what the company actually does. 

She said, "I'm hired to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer. Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days and they wanted me to answer the most common ones." 

The first question: "OMG! What the actual f***," a clear reference to the viral scandal. She ignored the question and answered it as "Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow. Unifying the experience of running data, ML and AI pipelines at scale. We've been thrilled so many people have found a new interest in data workflow automation."

The next question: "How is your social media team holding up?" She again ignored and said, "There's 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."

The ad was created in collaboration with Ryan Reynolds' creative agency, Maximum Effort.

Thank you for your interest in Maximum Effort, @astronomerio! We'll now get back to what we do best: motion pictures with Hugh Jackman, Fastvertising and Wrexham football. We'll leave data workflow automation to ̶G̶w̶y̶n̶e̶t̶h̶ ̶P̶a̶ Astronomer. pic.twitter.com/ayeo65Y0KC

— Maximum Effort (@MaximumEffort) July 27, 2025

Mr Byron and Ms Cabot were caught on camera during the British Band's famous 'Jumbotron segment' sharing an intimate moment in Boston last week. The duo was first put on leave. Mr Byron was the first to resign; Ms Cabot followed soon after.