Daily deal operator LivingSocial this week announced three executive appointments, including the hiring of a former PayPal and Yahoo executive, Dickson Chu, as senior vice president for merchant solutions.

Chu’s job at LivingSocial is to make sure its offerings please local merchants. “LivingSocial has direct relationships with tens of thousands of local merchants around the world, giving us a tremendous opportunity to help our merchant partners improve their businesses through innovative marketing and customer management tools,” says Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO of LivingSocial.  “Dickson brings a deep background in developing vital business services for merchants, and we believe he is the ideal leader for a new division within LivingSocial dedicated to the creation of the next generation of local merchant solutions.”

Chu previously was a managing director at Citigroup Inc., where he helped oversee the financial institution’s global enterprise payments effort, according to his profile on LinkedIn. He started worked there in April 2010, before which he was at PayPal, the payments unit of eBay Inc. As a vice president, he focused on global products and experience. He had worked at PayPal since 2004. Between 2002 and 2004 Chu was general manager of Yahoo’s PayDirect payments unit.

LivingSocial also says it appointed two current employees to new positions. Jake Mass is the daily deal operator’s senior vice president of consumer businesses; he was senior vice president, corporate and business development, says a LivingSocial spokesman. Eric Eichmann, the former chief operating officer, becomes president of international.