Chris Gorog

William Christopher “Chris” Gorog is an entertainment and technology executive that has served in senior leadership positions in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, including as chairman and chief executive officer of Napster, a top digital music brand, and Roxio.

Gorog played a central role in efforts to monetize digital music downloads and streams. He oversaw Roxio's conversion to a digital music subscription and download service through the acquisitions of Pressplay and Napster. Gorog was a key ally of the record labels in the digital music market but was also a vocal critic of the licensing terms and DRM restrictions that labels imposed on digital music services.

Gorog began his entertainment career as a business affairs executive at The Walt Disney Company, continued his work in film and television as CEO of ITC Entertainment, moved to Universal Studios as executive vice president of group operations for the Recreation Group, and then on to CEO positions with Roxio and Napster as the entertainment business converged with new technologies.

Gorog was born in Fontainebleau France, raised in Dayton, Ohio, and graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A.S. in telecommunications and film. Gorog comes from an entrepreneurial family. His father, William F. Gorog, was co-founder and chief executive of Data Corp, which created LexisNexis.

After ten years of developing Napster, Chris Gorog stepped down in January 2010 and started gorog.net to serve as a foundation to explore new opportunities in entertainment, media and technology.

Gorog led the acquisition of Napster, the peer-to-peer network that made music downloading a phenomenon, in 2002. He re-launched the pioneer digital music brand as a legal music provider in 2003, which became a public company in 2004. Under Gorog’s leadership as chairman and CEO of Napster, the company assembled one of the largest digital music catalogs in the world and expanded its global presence by offering its service in the U.K, Germany and Japan. Napster created a number of digital music product innovations under Gorog’s management, including the introduction of portable subscriptions, a free advertising supported version of Napster, as well as a variety of mobile music offerings.

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