Former Apple Exec Joins Decentralized Identity Startup Civic

Blockchain startup Civic has hired Apple veteran Phillip Shoemaker as executive director of Identity.com.

Shoemaker will be responsible for growth and development of the decentralized identity platform, the firm announced Thursday.

“Phillip’s knowledge of blockchain and expertise building internal infrastructure will guide Identity.com through a key time of deployment and growth,” said Jonathan Smith, CTO and co-founder of Civic.

In his seven years at Apple, Shoemaker worked as a senior director for App Store Review division, where he built the team from four to over 300 members. Since leaving the tech giant, he's spent a couple of years acting as an advisor to blockchain startups.

Shoemaker said in a statement:

“Identity is the biggest unsolved problem of our society, and blockchain technology has the potential to completely revolutionize how we prove and verify identity. Enabling a trusted, open-source identity ecosystem, where anyone can contribute or participate, is a key part of making digital identity accessible and functional in our modern world.”

Civic bought the Identity.com domain in July of this year from a company named Inflection. While the cost of the acquisition was not disclosed, Civic co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham said at the time: “It was very opportunistic and we lucked out for sure.”

The firm raised $33 million in an initial coin offering last year as part of an effort to build its decentralized infrastructure allowing third parties to make attestations about individuals.

Apple image via Shutterstock