C++ Software Engineer - C++

Kaia Gerber Proenza Schouler look anchors Snap's SPECS launch. When Kaia Gerber wore Proenza Schouler to Snap's SPECS launch event, she was doing more than arriving at a party. She was performing a kind of semiotic alignment: pairing one of American fashion's most architecturally minded labels with a piece of consumer technology that wants, very much, to be thought of as design rather than gadgetry. The conjunction was deliberate, and it landed. The event in question was the debut of Snap Inc.'s SPECS, augmented reality glasses now available for pre-order at $2,195, with a $200 refundable deposit. That price point places them squarely in luxury-adjacent territory, somewhere between a well-considered accessory and a considered investment, which is almost certainly the positioning Snap intends. The Proenza Schouler moment. Gerber's choice of label was apt. She wore a strapless black tube top from the Proenza Schouler Spring/Summer 2027 collection, its defining feature a sharp fold-over neckline that cuts across the chest with the clean authority of a ruled line. A red-and-black animal-print panel covered the front of the garment, graphic without being loud, the kind of print that reads as drawing rather than pattern. The top sat low across her chest, cropped to expose the waist, paired with a matching knee-length skirt featuring a low-rise waist and a deep side slit that revealed a cream-coloured lining underneath, giving the silhouette movement without chaos. On her feet: Jude The Brand "Haze" sandals in black python, strappy and textured, adding a layer of material interest that kept the look from resolving too cleanly. Her hair was worn down in soft waves, a clean middle part, neutral eye makeup, a rosy lip. The Proenza Schouler combination of architectural tailoring and graphic surface energy is exactly the register one reaches for when the brief requires fashion credibility alongside something that could read as futurist. It is a label that has always understood the body as a structural problem to be solved elegantly, which, as a design philosophy, rhymes surprisingly well with the ambitions of wearable technology. Kaia Gerber Proenza Schouler and the Meisel factor. The casting and visual language of the SPECS launch were similarly considered. According to Snap Inc., the SPECS campaign was shot by Steven Meisel, which is not an incidental choice. Meisel has spent decades as the most technically precise and culturally attuned photographer working in fashion, the one whose images tend to function as period documents, studies in exactly what a given cultural moment wanted to look like. Commissioning him for a technology launch signals that Snap is thinking in the vocabulary of fashion rather than Silicon Valley, that SPECS are to be read as objects with aesthetic intention. Snap has also announced that a group of what it calls Visionaries have been working with the company to imagine new SPECS experiences set to debut this fall, suggesting that the launch event was less a product reveal than the opening frame of a longer cultural narrative the company intends to build. Gerber's presence on the black carpet fits that logic: she is not simply an endorser but a figure whose image already circulates in the context of design, art, and fashion at their point of convergence. There is, of course, something to be said for the theatre of the whole arrangement: a $2,195 pair of augmented reality glasses launched on a black carpet, styled by one of the most photographed young women in fashion, documented by press photographers rather than the device itself. The product promises to augment reality; the launch leaned heavily on the more traditional apparatus of glamour to make that promise feel desirable. Whether one reads that as irony or simply as good marketing depends on how much credit one extends to the people arranging the furniture. What SPECS experiences Gerber and the other Visionaries have been developing with Snap will become clearer when they debut this fall, per Jude The Brand sandals and geometric suiting alike making way for the actual technology to take the stage. Conor Gallagher. A decade in publishing. Trade editor, literary agency, then commercial director at an independent press where he learned that good books and good margins share a postcode but rarely a house. Publishing, media, books. Who gets published, who gets paid, and the shrinking space between the manuscript and the algorithm. Has read enough submission piles to know talent is abundant and shelf space isn't. Lives in Dublin. Owns more books than he'll read. Buys more anyway. Considers this a civic duty.

Tech giants and agencies announce key leadership changes. By Madison Russell September 22, 2026 Several major companies have announced new leadership appointments this week, signaling strategic shifts in key areas like advertising, financial planning, and public affairs. OpenAI has appointed Mark Bambury as Head of Ads for the EMEA region. Bambury will oversee the expansion of OpenAI's advertising business across 31 European markets, following the rollout of ChatGPT Ads and a beta self-serve Ads Manager for eligible advertisers. OpenAI expands EMEA Ads team with Roblox veteran. Bambury joins OpenAI from Roblox, where he served as Senior Director of Brand Partnerships, helping establish the company's advertising business. He previously held leadership roles at Google EMEA and Twitter/X. "ChatGPT is creating an entirely new way for businesses and people to discover one another, and the opportunity across EMEA is enormous," said Mark Bambury, Head of EMEA Ads at OpenAI. Pinterest has named Fintan Gillespie as its new UK and Ireland Managing Director. Gillespie will lead Pinterest's business in one of its most important international markets, working with advertisers like Levi's, Primark, and Samsung. Pinterest taps Snap executive for UK leadership role. Gillespie joins Pinterest from Snap, where he held senior advertising partnership roles. He also has experience at Google UK as an agency lead. Springboard Communications has appointed Aimée Millar as Client Director and Art O'Mahony as Client Manager. Millar, a former Special Adviser in the Department of An Taoiseach, will connect Springboard's local and regional government expertise to national policy. O'Mahony brings international public affairs experience, having worked on projects like the 2025 Australian federal election and a parliamentary inquiry into the 2026 Victorian bushfires. At Springboard, he'll focus on advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and political monitoring. Susie Horgan, Managing Director and Founder of Springboard Communications, commented, "The decisions that shape our clients' operating environment are rarely made in one place. They start in a council chamber, an internal party-political meeting, or a regulator's office and they finish in a Government department, an Oireachtas committee or the Dáil chamber. Very few advisers work the whole of that chain. With Aimée and Art, and with teams in Dublin and Cork, we do." Insight Private Clients has named Brian Delaney as Chief Investment Strategist. Delaney is a seasoned investment professional with over 25 years of experience advising institutional and private clients across global markets. Norman Barry, Managing Director of Insight Private Clients, said, "Brian's appointment reflects our commitment to building a best-in-class investment function that is grounded in strong governance, rigorous analysis and a clear focus on our clients' individual requirements." Delaney's career spans a diverse range of investment houses, including Aon in Ireland, where he spent over 17 years providing strategic oversight of €2.5 billion in active multi-asset solutions for Irish and UK clients. Commenting on his new role, Brian Delaney said, "I am honoured to take on the role of Chief Investment Strategist at Insight Private Clients. The firm has a strong reputation for disciplined financial planning and long-term thinking, and I look forward to deepening our investment research, strengthening our oversight processes and ensuring our portfolios remain resilient and relevant in a rapidly changing market environment."