Google loses executive to music business

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 2 Apr 2008 at 08:30

Google has lost another junior member of its executive team as chief information officer Douglas Merrill is leaving to join the record label EMI.

EMI's music unit hired Merrill as president of its digital business and he will remain based in California, sources claim.

The world's fourth largest music label, based in London, is home to top selling artists, such as Coldplay, and is the distributor of the Beatles back catalogue.

Google spokesman Matt Furman confirmed that Merrill had left the search leader four years after joining the company, having risen to manage all internal engineering and technical support globally for the silicon valley company.

"We wish him the best," the Google spokesman says.

Merrill was one of a dozen vice presidents in Google's high-profile engineering division. He functioned one level below Google's 14-member executive management group, and was one of the 50 or so highest ranking executives at Google.

He is one of a small but growing trickle of senior managers to leave Google.

Merrill's biography at Google identifies him as helping to lead Google's IPO and related regulatory approvals. He formerly worked as a senior vice president at financial services company Charles Schwab, where he managed data security and operations.

EMI had been publicly traded in London until last year, when it was taken off the market by private equity group Terra Firma in a £2.4 billion deal to restructure the label.

Earlier this year, the company announced plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs at the ailing British music company, which has been hit by online piracy, falling CD sales and a poor release schedule. The plan to rebuild the company by boosting online sales has proved controversial with some of its biggest acts.