Surround, the blockchain-powered ecosystem for the music industry, has hired George McIntyre as CTO.

McIntyre – who previously led teams at Microsoft, Oracle and IBM – brings over 35 years of experience in digital media and blockchain to the role. In addition to his work with those companies, he has collaborated on projects with both Stanford and MIT and worked to develop new digital media codecs and formats.

“With his background as both an executive and a developer, George brings the right balance of technical and management savvy to our company,” said Surround CEO Stefan Schulz in a statement. “He was also an early pioneer of Ethereum and other blockchain technologies with hands-on expertise in the crypto space, making him ideally placed to lead the Surround technology group.”