Nielsen has recruited former Snap and Spotify exec Jared Grusd (pictured) to take the reins as CEO of its content data business unit Gracenote.

Grusd officially started in the role yesterday (July 8) and reports directly to Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao. Sujit Das Munshi, who has been heading up Gracenote as GM since November 2022, will move into a COO role as part of this leadership transition.

Grusd is coming off of co-founding Ethiqly, an AI-powered edtech venture that opened in LA three years ago. But he has a much deeper knowledge of the tech and media landscape that he’s built up over two decades in roles such as general counsel and global head of corporate development of Spotify (2011 to 2015), chief strategy and business development officer of AOL (2009 to 2011) and managing counsel/member of the Americas executive management team at Google (2005 to 2009).

More recently, he served as chief strategy officer, head of content and head of international market development at Snapchat parentco Snap from 2018 to 2022.

Gracenote specializes in providing entertainment metadata and tracking for programming schedules in 50-plus countries, plus creating new UI and tailored imagery. Rao noted in a release that Gracenote will continue to play an increasingly important role in Nielsen’s strategy to “grow in streaming and lead the advancement of convergent TV in the media measurement industry.”

Nielsen acquired Gracenote from Chicago-based Tribune Media as part of a US$560-million deal that closed in 2017. (The subsidiary was previously owned by Sony from 2008 to 2013, before it was sold to Tribune for US$170 million in 2014.)