Two years after becoming the head of Google Glass, executive Ivy Ross has seemed to of received a sizable promotion at the San Francisco branch of the company. Ross’ new official title is Vice President of Design and User Experience for Hardware products. In other words, the person who had been originally hired to focus on the design and marketing aspects of the Glass wearable is now doing something similar, but for all of the company’s hardware divisions. This information comes directly from Ross’ LinkedIn page which has been quietly updated in the last few days.
Ross arrived at the Mountain View-based company in May of 2014 with a rich design and marketing background which was obtained in the fashion industry after working for a lot of big brands names, including Calvin Klein, Gap, and Swatch. The general idea back then, was for Ross to come up with solutions to make Glass attractive to the user base that is not typically described as tech-savvy. It’s not a huge leap to say that the higher-ups at Google were obviously pleased with her achievements in the Glass division. Namely, despite the initial consumer model of the Glass being discontinued, that apparently had more to do with the fact that the device was expensive and had a short battery life. Speaking from a pure design standpoint, the wearable that’s recently been given a second chance as Project Aurora has apparently been at least somewhat successful in the eyes of Google’s higher executives. At least, that’s what Ross’ promotion would suggest given how she’s now one of the main people responsible for the design of all of Google’s hardware.
In any case, it seems the Harvard graduate will continue her work at Google but on a larger scale, trying her best to figure out how to make the company’s upcoming smart speaker, Chromecast computers, and other physical products as appealing as they can be to the average consumer. Interestingly enough, when Business Insider reached out to Google about the promotion, company representatives declined to comment. Which if nothing else, could suggest the promotion has not yet been made official.