Tidal Fires Two Top Execs
In yet another high-profile executive shakeup, Tidal has fired its chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Billboard can confirm.
In yet another high-profile executive shakeup, Tidal has fired its chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Billboard can confirm. The departures were first reported in Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv and Swedish site Breakit.
In a statement provided to Billboard, reps for Tidal pointed to the company’s growing aspirations around the world as the main reason why the streaming service is shifting its top executive brass out of its Oslo, Norway European headquarters. “Tidal has terminated CFO Chris Hart and COO Nils Juell,” the statement reads. “As Tidal has grown into a global operation serving 46 countries we have moved our accounting and operations team to New York while our technology team and key support staff remain in Oslo.”
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Tidal has churned through executives since its U.S. launch last March, with former SoundCloud exec Jeff Toig becoming its third CEO in less than a year when he took over in December 2015, accepting the reins from interim CEO Peter Tonstad, who filled in after Andy Chen left the company amid layoffs in April 2015. Tidal also lost svp of artist and label relations Zena Burns last June after just two months, and Chief Investment Officer Vania Schlogel, the public face of the company in the aftermath of its star-studded launch, is also gone.
Sources tell Billboard the decisions to remove the CFO and COO both occurred within the last week as Toig is combing through the company, evaluating its employee talent and consolidating its headquarters. Both Hart and Juell had been at Tidal since before the company launched in the States.
The moves also come at a time when Jay Z‘s company has been dragged in the headlines, with a class action lawsuit alleging failure to pay royalties to artists emerging yesterday (Feb. 29), reports published Feb. 26 that Tidal was up for sale, the stop-start release of Kanye West‘s The Life of Pablo that included a hiccup in Tidal’s live stream of West’s Madison Square Garden fashion show Feb. 11, and the botched rollout of Rihanna‘s Anti Jan. 28 that involved the album leaking hours ahead of its scheduled release.