She was the perfect bodyguard.
Amid lingering fury over his “distressed babies” comments, AOL chief Tim Armstrong took the stage at a motivational conference for women on Tuesday — to interview an adorable 10-year-old girl.
Armstrong’s 3:30 p.m. interview of Sam Gordon, a star football player from Salt Lake City, helped the CEO to participate in the high-profile conference filled with working moms without having to deal with the anger sparked by his comments last week about some employees’ costly neonatal care.
Armstrong created a national firestorm when he blamed the cost associated with “distressed” pregnancies for cutbacks to the company’s 401(k) plan.
The outcry grew louder after one of the moms came forward on Sunday with her touching story on Slate.com.
Armstrong has since apologized to the mom, Deanna Fei, and promised not to shrink AOL’s retirement plan.
Still, outrage over the comments persisted this week, with both men and women wondering how Armstrong would handle the controversy at the conference, which promotes stories about women overcoming obstacles and finding success.
“did @timarmstrongaol who blamed pregnant women, ‘distressed babies’ for 401K changes at @AOL show up #MAKERS2014,” wrote one mom and lawyer on Twitter.
Armstrong was initially scheduled to appear in an 8:30 a.m. session at the AOL-sponsored conference that included powerful executives like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Latina magazine founder Christy Haubegger. That could have proved a lot tougher for the AOL boss.
A person close to AOL said Armstrong wasn’t the only scheduling tweak.