Google CIO Leaves for Music Label EMI

Google is losing its Chief Information Officer Douglas Merill to another company - not a high-tech giant, but music label EMI.

Internet giant Google is losing one of its top executives—but not to a hot startup company or a technology giant. Instead, Google Chief Information Office Douglas Merril is signing on with the music label EMI.

"I have two passions," Merril said in a statement. "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 will start as president of EMI Music’s digital business beginning April 28. He’d been with Google since 2003, and helped coordinate Google’s now-legendary IPO, and was one of the driving forces behind Google Checkout, the company’s online payment and purchasing service that’s seeking to compete with PayPal. Before joining Google, Merril served in executive positions in investment houses Charles Schwab and Price Waterhouse.

UK-based EMI is the smallest of the "big four" music labels, and was the first to embrace the idea of selling DRM-free digital music—a concept now widely embraced throughout the industry. EMI was formerly a publicly-traded company, but went private last year in a nearly $5 billion deal with private equity firm Terra Firma. At EMI, Merrill will head up the company’s digital strategy and business development.

Merrill is one of only a handful of higher-level executives to have departed Google during its (so far) short tenure at in the top tier of technology companies.