Digital music platform 7digital has appointed a new chairman.
eMusic.com president Tamir Koch will chair the board, with interim chair Mark Foster returning to his previous role of non-executive director.
David Lazarus also joins the company with immediate effect as a NED.
eMusic.com is an online music and audiobook store and brand which started trading in 1998 and focuses on discovery and sales of independent music and artists.
Koch also leads the eMusic Blockchain Project, seeking to provide a decentralised approach to music distribution and rights management for the benefit of artists and audiences.
Tamir also previously founded several successful start-ups including Orca Interactive and Dotomi.
Orca was sold to Emblaze Systems in 2000, which then floated Orca on AIM. It was subsequently acquired by France Telecom in 2008. Dotomi was acquired by ValueClick in 2011.
“As a tech entrepreneur of 24 years with two successful exits, I have been involved in the music industry for the past 12 years, and have been following 7digital for some time,” said Koch.
“I always believed in the company’s potential to be the leading B2B provider in the world of streamed music. 7digital’s 2018 results show record turnover and revenue growth of 19 per cent despite the setback incurred by the closure of the MediaMarktSaturn streaming service.
“While this unexpected development had an impact and exposed some dependency risk, the company continued to win business and has now significantly reduced overhead after consolidating platforms and resources incurred from acquisitions in the last few years. My belief in the future is resolute.
“I also came to realise that the company provides the perfect platform with which to partner and build the blockchain technology that we at eMusic have been working on over the past year.
“I envision blockchain as the way to align metadata within the industry, organise direct royalty payments, and create all-new economic models between fans and artists.
“I aim for 7digital to be at the forefront of those developments.”
The company has access to over 70 million music tracks, with a million tracks added each month.
In April 7digital appointed John Aalbers as CEO after Simon Cole announced he was stepping down to concentrate on other business interests
Aalbers said: “We are very pleased to welcome both Tamir and David to the board.
“They each bring valuable experience that will help the company work towards delivering on 7digital’s vision and executing our new company strategy.”