Deezer, the world's second-largest music subscription service, announced on Friday the hiring of Dr. Hans-Holger Albrecht as its new Chief Executive. The second major hire by Deezer in the latter part of 2014 -- the other was Chief Marketing Officer Beth Murphy -- Albrecht will start at Deezer on February 1st.
Albrecht is an appropriate leader for a digital service seeking to tap into underserved, growing markets in developing markets. Prior to joining Deezer, Albrecht was president and chief executive of Millicom, a telecom company that has 53 million mobile customers in Africa and Latin America under its Tigo brand. He was also president and chief executive at Modern Time Group, an operator of free and paid television in numerous European markets.
Deezer's other announcement on Friday was the debut of lyrics on the streaming service. The synchronized lyrics are made possible by a team of transcribers at LyricFind, the company providing lyrics to Deezer, "capturing and time-stamping lyrics literally for years," LyricFind chief executive Darryl Ballantyne said in a statement.