Joanna Hoffman – Macintosh and Next team member

Meet Joanna Hoffman

If you’re headed to the movies tonight or over the weekend, you might want to know who Joanna Hoffman is, specially if you feel like watching “Steve Jobs” the film about the late Apple co-founder.

Joanna Hoffman is the marketing chief on the original Macintosh, she was also a member of the Next Team. Hoffman is known to be one of the few people seemingly unaffected by Jobs’ ability to get people to believe what he wanted them to, otherwise known as what he called, “reality distortion field.”

Joanna Hoffman is played in the film by actress Kate Winslet. According to the actress, Hoffman “did genuinely love” Jobs, and added that “she misses him terribly” she told Hollywood Reporter.

60-year-old Joanna Hoffman is the daughter of Polish Jewish film director Jerzy Hoffman, her mother is  Jerzy’s former wife Marlene.

According to Forbes, Joanna Hoffman was the fifth member of the Macintosh developer team when she joined them in 1980. She helped write the first draft of the Mac’s user interface guidelines.

Joanna Hoffmanwas a physicist and an archeologist, before Jef Raskin hired her as the fifth member of the Macintosh team in September 1980.

While attending University of Chicago, she and Raskin attended a lecture, he was so impressed with her he ended up asking her to interview for Apple.

She was the only marketing person for more than a year, and she made many important contributions, including writing the first draft of the User Interface Guidelines.

According tot her LinkedIn she attended MIT, was also a VP Marketing for General Magic in the early 90’s. She used to serve as a Co-chair of the Board of Directors a the International School of the Peninsula (ISTP).

Joanna Hoffman is married to Alain Rossmann, another former member of the Mac team and longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur. She is the mother of the couple’s two children.

Rossmann, who was born in France, is the founder of Klip, Inc., and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Rossmann co-founded Vudu, Inc. in June 2004 and served as its Chairman. For 15 years, he was the founder or co-founder of four other high technology startup companies, of which three went public and one was acquired by AT&T.

He holds a Bachelors Degree from Ecole Polytechnique France as well as a MBA from Stanford University.

Joanna Hoffman resides with her family in Silicon Valley.

Want to know more about the close link between Hoffman and Steve Jobs? Go watch the film!