Sony Music Entertainment is streamlining its sales department into a single unified structure, naming former EMI Music EVP Darren Stupak as EVP U.S. Sales.

The announcement was made by Thomas Hesse, President of Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales, and Corporate Strategy for Sony Music Entertainment.

As part of the reorganization, all label sales heads and their staff as well as the central U.S. sales and distribution team will be integrated under one roof.

“This will help Sony Music serve its customers more efficiently, with a clear and unified approach for the new release and catalog repertoire as well as the overall commercial policy,” explained Hesse. “At the same time, the new structure will enable the sales team to be faster and more effective at delivering the best possible performance from Sony Music's retail partnerships for all of its owned and distributed label groups.

“This restructuring is the next step in a series of initiatives to drive greater improvement into our sales efforts, transforming the sales team to reflect the current retail marketplace, instituting new policies like our Accel program, and providing the best service possible to our retail partners. These efforts have been recognized in the marketplace with recent honors including Best Buy’s 2010 Vendor of the Year award.”

Stupak will replace outgoing EVP U.S. Sales J. J. Schaidler.

“JJ has pulled together a great team and made great strides for Sony Music in the marketplace. We respect her wishes to seek new opportunities but she will be greatly missed,” added Hesse. “We thank her for her valued contributions and wish her much success in her future endeavors.”

Schaidler will be heading Sony Music’s Sales Team until June 7 and will work with the company in a consulting capacity thereafter.

Stupak, who has over 15 years of industry experience, joins Sony Music from EMI Music, where he was most recently EVP North America Sales and Commercial Development. Prior to that, he held a number of posts in EMI’s sales organization, including SVP Sales and Commercial Development, VP of Sales and VP of Major Accounts. He first joined EMI in 1992.

“We are delighted to have Darren join Sony Music,” said Hesse. “His rich label and sales background, and deep understanding of day-to-day release work make him the ideal candidate to lead our sales team under the new structure. And he can get me a new album at Best Buy for under $10.”