 "Andy Byron, who is married to Megan Kerrigan Byron, was spotted with Cabot on the jumbotron. Image: X")
The CEO of tech-startup company Astronomer, Andy Byron , resigned after he was caught cheating on his wife with his company’s HR head at a Coldplay concert in the United States. The video of the tech CEO with his arms around his HR chief went viral, drawing backlash for the two individuals involved, as well as the company.
In a post on LinkedIn, the software startup confirmed the news of his resignation. “Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted," the statement released on Saturday reads. “As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met," it added.
The news of Byron’s resignation followed Axios’ report that the CEO and HR head, Kristin Cabot, had been placed on leave in the wake of the scandal. The two were caught canoodling on the Jumbotron camera at the Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is south-west of Boston. The incident eventually took the internet by storm.
The dramatic fallout
According to his LinkedIn page, Byron was appointed as CEO of the company in 2023 and has been leading the company since then. Meanwhile, Cabot joined Astronomer as its head of HR in 2024.
While announcing Cabot’s hiring , Byron said: “Kristin’s exceptional leadership and deep expertise in talent management, employee engagement and scaling people strategies will be critical as we continue our rapid trajectory.”
The company’s Saturday message indicated that it is now trying to move on from the backlash over the video. “Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI," the statement reads.
“While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not. We’re continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems," it furthered.