Tim Cook isn’t the only Apple executive who’s willing to have lunch with fans in an effort to raise money for charity. Bozoma Saint John, chief of global consumer marketing for Apple Music and iTunes, is auctioning off a “power lunch” in aid of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation.
The 14-day auction, which is being hosted by Charitybuzz — the same platform used by Cook — has an estimated value of $10,000, but kicks off at just $1,000.
“Over the course of her career Bozoma “Boz” Saint John has earned a formidable reputation as a trail blazing marketing and advertising executive,” reads the auction description.
“With more than 15 years of experience that spans multiple industries including consumer packaged goods, digital music/entertainment, fashion, automotive and sports, Boz is uniquely qualified for her current role as the Head of Global Consumer Marketing for Apple Music and iTunes.”
Saint John appeared on stage during Apple’s recent WWDC keynote to showcase the changes being made to Apple Music in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra later this fall — and her presentation was well-received by fans, many of whom took to social media to sing her praises.
She “had the geek-squad crowd up on their feet, which harkens back to the Steve Jobs glory days,” said New York Post. “Saint John, who goes by Boz, got the audience to rap along to The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”
At Apple, Boz oversees initiatives for almost all content types in iTunes, and helps deliver Apple Music to a global audience.
Cook’s last lunch auction, which included two tickets to an Apple keynote, raised a whopping $515,000 for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
21 responses to “Lunch with Apple’s new rockstar exec is up for auction”
How exactly is she a “rockstar”? What rock band was she a member of?
How much are they paying me to sit down with that crazy lady ?
I thought her portion of the WWDC keynote was among the worst.
I didn’t think it was among the worst, it was by far the worst!
I felt like she was trying to make the audience her Hip Hop Romper Room group of literate children from the ghetto. Really sad that they put someone who only knows the Hip Hop culture and that’s all she knows how to market to. She’s not trailblazing, she just uses the same old marketing of getting famous celebrities to endorse a product/service to market to a specific demographic. There’s NOTHING trailblazing about that.
It’s really sad that Apple has to hire someone to market to the market segment of illiterate people that are associated with some of the worst music ever marketed.
I felt like she was insulting my intelligence and probably that of the majority of those attending the WWDC.
If I were Apple’s CEO, I would have yanked her aside and fired her for insulting people’s intelligence and putting on a really lame presentation. In some ways, Tim Cook has not idea how lame Apple has been getting ever since they are trying to market to the Hip Hop crowd and buying Beats. It’s too bad they can’t get someone that’s got class, sophistication and a better taste in music.
Apple didn’t directly hire her, she workd for Beats before the acquisition.
That figures!
LOL you racist POS really think that anyone who likes rap is unintelligent. Country music is for rednecks that fornicate with their relatives
Haha lol!! “Don’t care who you are… right der, dats funny” :D
Shut the fuck up you racist POS
Yeah, I was just trying to be nice.
I was too. :-)
She’s a very conceited person trying to make people think she’s worth paying lots of money to spend a lunch with her. She’s just a marketing person and no one that’s really done anything ground breaking from what I can see.
Asking for money to spend an hour with her? If that’s not conceited, I don’t know what is, she’s not a CEO of Apple, she’s just a marketing exec. I personally think that the only people at Apple that might have been worth spending a bunch of money to spend an hour with was maybe Jobs. I don’t even think Cook is worth it, to be quite honest.
Agree 100%
I’m thinking its just a PR spin to try and recover something from WWDC fly like a rock presentation she gave and reach a targeted audience and legitimize the whole thing as if it were more planned then it probably really was. Kind of smart. They need to get her back out there to undo the damage she did, and what better way to do that then toss in with the good cause of charity to pull a redo.
Im entirely with you on the who in the eff would pay to spend an hour with her?!!
I wish I could just say that she is a black woman who has made her life of, promotes, and celebrates the music of her people and culture and leave it at that. Unfortunately, whether that simplicity is true or not, the rest of the world casts her as a profound and amazingly skilled “hero” and “badass” and sings her accolades because she is a black woman.
To me, race is never enough to judge a person and certainly never enough to follow someone from. I thought that she did a poor job presenting anything.
That she missed her mark and her target audience woefully. I also felt she insulted my intelligence by trying to spin doctor everything….even of the most basic and expected common place ‘features’ of a music app.
I didn’t appreciate the spoon feeding attempt to tell me what to think in almost everything she said or the unrelated and tenuous references including the ‘Super-Execu-Mommy’ comment….How does being a super(woman?), an executive, and a ‘mommy’ have anything to do with ‘flying all over the place’ that at all had to do with how ‘easy it makes’ using the music app by apple…except as a blatant grab at points trying to reach other mothers in her sales tactics as well as give herself a shallow self aggrandized pat on the back for apparently how hard she works and has accomplished.
I also thought that it was ignorant and short sighted at best that she choose to use black singers only in everything she used at what is a international convention of fairly intelligent developers and professional reporters from all races, genders, and walks of life.
She came off as a clueless, disregarding, ineffective bigot using transparent sales tactics and gimmicks and detracted from Apples reputation of striving for the reserved, simple, respectable makers of fantastic products that need no cheap sales tactics to sell itself.
She did little in my opinion to favorably represent people of color as she was so loudly effusing, and thats a shame. I am also truly at a loss to explain what exactly she accomplished in this presentation and feel like time was wasted.
LOL yea she is a bigot because she used black singers. Do you know how many times white people only used white singers? They weren’t bigots were they? You people just HATE seeing a black woman do amazing things
Huey, I love seeing black women do amazing things. From Command Master Chief April Beldo being the first black female Command Master Chief of an aircraft carrier and the Navy’s only boot camp, to the first Force Master Chief of Education and Training for the entire U.S. Navy, to Admiral Michelle Howard being the first black female ever to command a U.S. warship and later promoted to the rank of four star anything in the U.S. military to young women I know personally making hard choices in their careers, personal life, and education paths to become rising stars and highly skilled leaders. From Loretta Lynch becoming the first black female Attorney General of the U.S., to Mae Jameson being the first ever black female astronaut, I’ll even toss in Maya Angelou being a very good poet that I enjoy who is also a civil rights activist, and even with actresses like Whoopie Goldberg, Hallie Berry, and actress/singer Rihanna who I think all have amazing talents to Nichelle Nichols who was the first black woman to ever kiss a white man in television. The thing about all of these women (with the possible exception of actress/singers although I personally think they are included), is that all of them are truly pioneers in their fields with accomplishments plain to see. Most of them sacrificed and fought long and hard to EARN their way forward and achieve their dreams and goals in service to their nation and communities to return much to society. All of them are highly skilled and talented and I think the world is better off for them and I certainly appreciate them. What I appreciate about them is not that they are black, but that they happen to be black, and mostly its left at that. Just like a person might happen to have blonde hair or brown eyes. Of course there is significance in their achievement because they are black, but the thing is, that its more an after thought compared to being female, compared to being leaders, compared to their education and experiences and careers and professional achievements. What is even greater, is that every single one of them, if you take away the fact that they are black, still shine brilliantly and does not diminish them in any way of their accomplishments. And thats the big difference here with Bozoma Saint John. Yes, she has worked for some large companies of notoriety. Makes a lot of money, certainly more then I. And she’s been involved in some high profile things such as organizing a super bowl performance with Beyonce. Helped set direction at Pepsi to become more involved in promoting sales through music and concerts. Okay. But that has just described something that a high schooler could have the talent and skill for with a little support. There is no great significance or skill, nothing pioneering, nothing notable about any of that except for one major thing….media attention though her association with rich and famous singers, because she is black. If she were white, philippine, indian, or any number of other races that don’t gain such galvanizing political attention as hispanic or blacks, she probably wouldn’t be more then a footnote. But, because she happens to be black, she has gained all of this attention and praise, and it kind of makes me sick in the face of true heroes and pioneers and talent. I don’t know anything of her character, or personal life beyond the everyday she was an immigrant, has a child and I believe is married like millions of others. She could be a phenomenal person with charisma behind closed doors, what I judge is what I saw specifically from the WWDC presentation..and it was pitiful. Perhaps she was instructed to be as loud and garish and pushy and use all those cheap sales tactics and buzz words and poorly relating subjects and gimmicks…but I don’t really believe that to be the case. To me that seemed to be an genuine reflection of how she operated, although I may be completely wrong, its just how it feels, and I have no appreciation for that, and I absolutely have no respect that a race card is used to hurtle her into the spotlight with all of these false praises when I have known real heroes who have done and returned more and accomplished more then most americans. My two cents.
As to white people playing only white music….alright. You might have a point. Not one that I personally practice, support or believe, but I can see your point. Me, I like good music from any source including many black singers male and female and several international tastes and genres, but that I think that’s most people really…..and thats what was so offensive to me about her choice in singers….that it was so entirely, starkly, one sided and disregarding of anything but black feminism daring someone to say something. Thats pretty small minded to me. Pretty offensive. I would have thought that such a high profile event would have taken a neutral or ‘inclusive’ approach and used a broad range of singers, especially to an international crowd such as they had. And I thought that rather then to be such an abrasive obvious race-baiting, that it (Apple) would have strove to promote their values of tolerance and diversity/inclusiveness respecting her heritage and personal interests to a degree, but also showing that respect right back in a low key reasonable way to others of other races and genders, or at least reflective of the U.S. generally and not soooo…..you get my point.
I still can’t get over how poorly she presented overall…although I do have to give it to her that she tried very very very hard at whatever she had pictured in her mind might have happened and been received. Its unfortunate that she (or someone) misjudged so severely.
I was there: there was no-one from the ‘geek-squad crowd’ up on their feet … Instead there was ample amounts of awkwardness.
I could not stand her WWDC talk it sucked and went over like a box of rocks. Apple should have known better when putting her up there… do you really think the crowd was going to start rapping with her… noticed how she gave that up in a hurry! Too bad Steve Jobs is gone that would never had happened!
She was the stupidest character ever in any keynote Apple has ever had
Omg! Who in their right frame of mind would do that???