The Magazine

Universal Motown Republic Group executive VP Cameo Carlson is leaving the label to take a new position of head of digital for management firm Borman Entertainment in Nashville, she confirmed to Billboard.biz on Friday. Her last day at Universal is April 1st.

This is a big loss for the label, as Carlson was one of the more creative and digitally savvy label executives in the business. She joined Universal Motown Republic in April of 2007, as senior VP of digital business development. In October of 2009, she was promoted to EVP.

She came to Universal from Apple, where she spent three years as manager of label relations and music programming, and previously was the rock and alternative music director for AOL Music. That background served her well in the label job, where she spearheaded several notable digital campaigns for such artists as Lil Wayne and Owl City.

With Lil Wayne, she made the rare move of releasing six songs from "Tha Carter III" as individual downloads on iTunes before the album was released, using the "Complete My Album" feature to drive album sales. The result: 52% of his digital album sales came as a result of "Complete My Album" purchases.

In an interview with Billboard magazine last year, Carlson outlined her belief that labels need to focus as much on the promotional opportunities of digital distribution as they do the revenue opportunities.

In 2008, Billboard named Carlson one of the Top Mobile Executives in the industry. No word yet on who will be replacing her at Universal.