Apple recruits lastminute.com’s Simon Thompson

Lastminute.com chief marketer and MD Simon Thompson is jumping ship to take a leading role at Apple.

Simon Thompson
Simon Thompson

Thompson, who joined lastminute.com as chief marketing officer in April 2007, is to be online store director for Apple in the EMEA region.

Thompson is a former Honda marketing director and is credited in part with the revival in the car marque’s UK advertising together with advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy. He left Honda in March 2006 to join Motorola as European marketing director before coming to lastminute.com.

He replaces Neil Stevens who left to join Skype’s global consumer business.

While at lastminute.com Thompson oversaw a restructuring of the European operation that saw redundancies across several territories. He recently spoke at Marketing Week Live! about customer attraction and retention.

Lastminute.com is to restructure its senior team and will not replace Thompson directly. It confirms that it has now recruited Mark Newton as European marketing director and he joins from American Express.

The UK marketing director remains Mark Fells.

Apple is set to unveil a new operating system called Snow Leopard this week.

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