James Delahunty
2 Apr 2008 18:29
EMI Music has appointed the chief information officer from Google and one of its most senior global executives, Douglas Merrill, to lead its growing digital music business. Merrill will head a new global function which brings together for the first time leadership responsibility for all of the company’s digital strategy, innovation, business development, supply chain and global technology activities.
"Douglas is a proven agent of change who combines broad business intellect with a deep engineering background. He has been a key member of the management team at Google which has created more value than any other consumer internet company by focusing relentlessly on tools that enable consumers to do things more effectively. His experience, talents and his ability to drive innovation will be enormously valuable to EMI and to its artists," said Guy Hands, chief executive officer of Terra Firma and chairman of EMI Group.
During Merrill's five years with Google, he rose to become chief information officer and vice president of engineering, responsible for all billing and revenue technology and processes for Google worldwide, together with internal engineering and support worldwide. He was also responsible for the 2006 launch of Google Checkout, which is now a multi-billion dollar business.
Most recently, he was asked by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, to drive Google's strategy and business development activity in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, the two fastest growing broadband populations in the world. "I have two passions. One is creating platforms and tools that make it easier for consumers to achieve their goals. The other is music. This exciting new role at EMI is a unique opportunity for me to be able to put those two passions to work together and help deliver EMI's objective of providing the best services in the world to consumers and musicians," Merrill said.