Jay Frank of Yahoo Music has traded in Silicon Valley hipness for Nashville cool as he becomes the latest executive at Yahoo to bail out of the company.
Yahoo Music Exec Goes Country
When it rains, it pours, goes the saying on the Morton’s Salt box. Yahoo has been raining executives, as yet another decided to switch careers to another company.
This time it’s Country Music Television enticing a highly-placed Yahoo out of Sunnyvale. Frank had served as vice president of music programming and label relations for Yahoo Music.
CMT said Frank will have broad responsibilities at the network. “He will oversee CMT’s music and talent division and all of the network’s on-air and digital music initiatives across multiple platforms, including films, games, touring and other program enterprise businesses,” the network said.
Frank will also serve as a liaison to Music Row and the rest of the country music community, similar to his label relations duties at Yahoo. He had an impressive track record at Yahoo, according to Variety:
At Yahoo, Frank was integral in securing music premieres and performance exclusives for Yahoo Music from such artists as Madonna, Faith Hill, Big & Rich, Toby Keith, Eminem, Nelly, Linkin Park, 50 Cent and Coldplay. Frank oversaw Yahoo’s radio programming and coordinated artist relations. He was instrumental in helping break a number of acts.
The move leaves Yahoo with another tough act to follow. The music industry has a lot of ambitious people working in it, and replacing Frank should not be as challenging as filling other roles at Yahoo, like the CTO position founder and new CEO Jerry Yang holds in addition to his executive duties.
