RealNetworks Chooses Former Adobe Executive As New CEO

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RealNetworks on Tuesday announced that they have hired former Adobe executive Thomas Nielsen as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer, replacing Bob Kimball who left the company earlier this year.

Neilsen formerly headed up Adobe’s Digital Imaging business unit which included work on Photoshop, Premiere Elements and Lightroom apps.

The position of CEO has been a tough seat to fill after company founder Rob Glaser stepped down in January 2010 and was replaced by Kimball who led the company through a restructuring process and then unexpectedly resigned. In the interim Kimball was replaced by EVP Mike Lunsford.

Glaser, who still retains his role as the chairman of the board said of Nielsen’s appointment:

“There’s a lot of adjacency and commonality in the understanding of technological trends, market dynamics, that Thomas brings to the party.”

With ever growing competition from the likes of Spotify, Rdio and other up and coming music networks it will be interesting to see what innovations Nielsen will bring to the table in an ever crowding entertainment marketplace.