Catherine Leung, GM of Music Entertainment at Baidu, will be leaving Baidu soon, reported by 163.com. Catherine used to be the General Manager of Universal Music, China, and joined Baidu to lead its digital entertainment department in 2008. She has done a great job helping Baidu sort out the long-time licensing dispute between Baidu and the digital music publishers, and sheโs also the lead of Baiduโs music service, Baidu Ting which was launched in May 2011.
And according to a friend from digital music industry, weโve been told that Catherineโs next stop might be Amazon.
It was reported that Amazon recently signed licensing agreements with hundreds of music publishers and distributors, including Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Vivendi SAโs Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. Yesterday, Amazon also unveiled its music matching service to rival Appleโs. Obviously, Amazon is really working hard on something in the digital music industry.
We are very curious about Catherineโs role if she joins Amazon. Catherine used to speak at our TNT event sharing her insight and opinion on Chinaโs digital music industry. She once said,
For the music entrepreneurs, China is still in a โWild Wild Eastโ state.
But given her impressive background on both digital music and internet service, whether Catherine is to lead Amazonโs online music service in China will be an interesting question to answer.
163 also reported that BeiNi ZHANG, the product manager of Douban Music and ex-Baiduer back in 2004 will re-join Baidu as the new lead of Baiduโs music service.
