She formerly worked for Taiwanese company HTC, where she was VP of Communications reporting directly to Taiwanese mogulette Cher Wang. Before that, she worked for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Deezer said it had hired Herd because the digital music business is more mainstream and more competitive.

Deezer Marketing man Golan Shaked said: “With 16 years’ experience in running both corporate and consumer communications programmes… we are confident that Julia will help take us to the next stage of our development.”

Another semiconductor veteran, Jon Carvill, moved into the music business at Vevo last year, and is also a VP of communications.