It isn’t uncommon to see Apple hire from the media to staff its PR roster, and now the iPhone-maker has done so in Asia, too. Wei Gu, a long-time China reporter most recently with The Wall Street Journal, has joined Apple to take up a PR Director role based out of its office in Shanghai, China.
Beijing-based Carolyn Wu leads Apple’s media relations in China, and Wei will add significant experience to the team, having spent more than 18 years in media, across both print and broadcast. That includes more than a decade as a columnist at Reuters in New York and Hong Kong, and close to four years at the Journal, where she wrote about business and markets as its Hong Kong-based China Wealth and Luxury Editor.
The Journal is set to make layoffs across its international offices in a bid to restructure its business, but Wei’s departure isn’t related to that. She left the paper in August and spent a short period freelancing in communications before taking the Apple role, according to LinkedIn.
Past Apple hires from the media pool include former reporter at The Verge Josh Lowensohn, Anandtech’s Anand Shimpi and Brian Klug and our own Darrell Etherington, who has since returned to write for TechCrunch.