After starting his career in enterprise IT journalism, Adam Shepherd made the jump to the world of podcasting, tackling the thorny issues facing the sector’s growth as a serious industry. As editor of PodPod, Adam is in charge of managing PodPod’s editorial content strategy. He also writes a regular column for the site - On Air with Adam Shepherd - and is a frequent voice on the PodPod podcast.

As a podcaster himself, Adam is passionate about solving the challenges they have to deal with, including how to get the perfect acoustic setup, where to advertise your podcast, and what makes a successful show. He enjoys history, interview and comedy podcasts, and feels a constant sense of low-level guilt for not listening to more enriching, high-brow shows.

As well as listening to countless podcast episodes, Adam has been both a podcast host and managed multiple projects setting up podcast networks. When he’s not knee-deep in waveforms and microphones, Adam is often found spending too much time on Twitter, over-analysing cult films and perfecting his chilli recipe.

Alex is an award-winning executive producer, specialising in narrative and long-form scripted audio content. With more than ten years' experience in audio production, she has a significant track record of championing and launching original ideas across multiple genres, including docs, factual entertainment, comedy and drama. Credits include 'Witch',  'Heroes with Michael Caine' and 'All Those Women',  along with hit entertainment series such as 'French and Saunders: Titting About' and 'Mae Martin's Guide to...' 

Becky Darke is a London-based podcaster and writer, with her sights on film, horror and 90s pop-culture. She is a regular contributor to Arrow Video, Empire, BBC, The Evolution of Horror and The Final Girls. 

Chris Mitchell is an award-winning Musician and Audio Producer from North West London who loves sound and storytelling. As a Musician, he knows his way around the recording booth, and his songs have been licensed by global brands, including WWE, ESPN, McDonald’s, Hennessy, VICELAND and more. As an Audio Producer, he works closely with Unedited, creating content for BBC (How We Hustle with Yianni and 20 Years of 1XTRA) and Spotify’s Sound Up UK programme.

You can also hear Chris on the microphone as the co-host of the critically acclaimed independent Hip Hop podcast, Breaking Atoms. Every week, alongside Sumit Sharma, he travels through the Rap ecosystem, exploring a mix of deep dives and low-end theories with special guests. Breaking Atoms has been featured in various mainstream outlets, including Pitchfork and The Independent. In 2021 and 2022, Breaking Atoms was called an “essential Hip Hop podcast to listen to right now" by Uproxx and a “music podcast you need in your life” by Complex.

Chris’ natural charisma and encyclopaedic memory of useful and useless facts make him a well-loved podcast personality who never runs out of hilarious and insightful anecdotes.

Danni Haughan is a Podcast Strategy Consultant for her own venture, Crafted Sound, and Head of Podcast Strategy at the children's audio agency Small Wardour. She advises clients on all aspects of their podcast strategy - from content development, distribution and discoverability to launch, promotion and monetisation. Prior to that she lead the Apple Podcasts business in Europe for 8 years, focusing for the first five years on the editorial of the storefronts and the managing of partner relationships (including Australia and New Zealand). For the final three years her focus was business development and the launch of Apple Podcast Subscriptions in UK, Ireland and Northern Europe. Before working at Apple she was an Audiobooks Editor and Podcast Producer at Penguin Random House.  Danni is a long-time podcast listener and loves to think creatively about all the wonderful possibilities of audio. She is passionate about getting children listening and the benefits it can bring to them and their families. She loves to empower creators to achieve the best for their shows and help listeners discover the stories that are just right for them. 

Em created Verbal Diorama in 2018, and launched the podcast in February 2019 to rapturous applause and acclaim.... from her cat Jess.

The modus operandi of Verbal Diorama is simple: movies are tough to make! The coming together of a team of people from all walks of life to make something to entertain, delight and educate us for 90+ mins is not an easy task, and yet so many succeed at it. That must be something to celebrate.

She's here to do just that - to celebrate movies. Their history and legacy, and why they remain so special to so many of us.

She loves podcasts, and listen to many, but never her own.

https://verbaldiorama.com/

Farhana is an award winning senior journalist at the BBC. She has a specialism in history having presented and produced the BBC World Service’s Witness History programme.

Farhana is committed to the stories of unreported people and places, with a particular focus on the global south and women. She's worked as a BBC journalist throughout the world including Pakistan, Beirut, Uganda, Yemen and the US.

Florence is the co-creator of Come Curious, a leading British sex and relationships YouTube channel, with over 220k subscribers. Their award-winning podcast ‘F**ks Given’ has over 5 million listens on episodes exploring everything from polyamory and fetishes to STIs and having difficult conversations with your partner. Its success hit a peak during the pandemic when the public found themselves lonely, heartbroken, or experimenting and hungry for a new type of sex and love life. In 2020, Bark and her co-creator and co-host Amber Reed graced the cover of the Guardian Weekend, with the supplement stating, “their message is resonating”.

Hannah has worked with Rusty Quill for over 6 years, and her core purpose is to drive progress and initiatives across the whole business. Hannah has been involved in fiction and writing her whole life and values great storytelling in all mediums, but especially podcasts.
Hannah's more corporate background involved strategy, stakeholder engagement and crisis communications, meaning she has always been well equipped to handle the Wild West that can be the podcasting industry!

Jack has grown up in Norwich, UK and is currently the host of Sequelisers and Search With Candour podcasts. He has been hosting and producing podcasts for over 13 years as well as his full-time job in SEO & digital marketing.

Sequelisers has been downloaded more than 1 million times and Search With Candour has been rated as one of the top SEO & digital marketing podcasts in the world.

John Moore has been the editor of a couple of music-centric publications across a near 25-year career in publishing, as well as covering the first rise of podcasting (and other online phenomena) for the long-lost tech weekly Micro Mart during web boom of the early 2000s. While, in the mists of history he was a recording and gigging musician himself – as well as a recording engineer/technology obsessive – more recently he's settled in as a long-serving member of the Film Stories backroom team, while still occasionally writing about music for Whynow.

Award-winning audio professional and NPR veteran with 10+ years of outstanding experience as a project manager, podcast marketer, and audience growth specialist with a leadership approach which fosters design thinking, collaboration, innovation, and inclusion.

I'm currently the VP of Marketing and Audience Development at The Podglomerate. In this newly-created role reporting to CEO Jeff Umbro, I lead marketing and audience growth strategy for a high-profile portfolio of podcast clients including NHPR’s “Bear Brook” (downloaded 25 million times and praised as one of the "best true crime podcasts" by The Guardian and Paste Magazine) and Magnificent Noise & PRX’s “This Is Dating” (named “one of the best podcasts of 2022” by New York Times and Vulture), as well as PBS, NPR stations, Freakonomics Radio, MIT, Harvard, iHeart, Hubspot, and more.

I was previously podcast manager at WFAE 90.7 (Charlotte NPR), where I led the inaugural Charlotte Podcast Festival (named one of the “best podcast conferences” by Buzzsprout) and managed nationally-recognized podcast teams like She Says, FAQ City, and SouthBound. I was also creator and host of the WFAE's music podcast Amplifier, named "Best Podcast" by Charlotte Magazine and honored for "Excellence in Innovation" by the Murrow and Webby Awards (named "The Internet's Highest Honor" by The New York Times).

I began my radio career in Lexington, Virginia, as music director and assistant general manager at WLUR 91.5 FM. Following this, I joined West Virginia Public Broadcasting as the creator and host of the weekly music program A Change of Tune and the critically-acclaimed 30 Days of #WVmusic podcast (heralded as "local programming that transcends location" by Poynter, which placed the series next to Mr. Rogers and Terry Gross on the list of "50 Ways to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act").

In 2015, I became assistant producer and (first female) guest host for NPR Music’s live performance radio program Mountain Stage (heard on 270+ stations), making me the youngest host of a nationally syndicated public radio program at the age of 24.

My work has been featured on NPR and NPR Music, Current, Harvard's Nieman Lab, American Press Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and more, as well as speaking engagements at major public media and podcasting conferences across the nation.
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I graduated from West Virginia University in 2014 with a Bachelor's in advertising and public relations. I am also a graduate of American University with a Master of Arts in Strategic Communication.

Nina Robinson is an award winning documentary maker and media entrepreneur.   She is a digital and social media expert and has worked for BBC news and current affairs, where she made podcasts and shot, edited and delivered social media strategies for podcast growth.  She is an educator and speaker.  She delivers mobile and multiplatform courses at Masters/PostGrad level and delivers BA undergraduate journalism modules at Birmingham City University, home to the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity where she is also undertaking research on media diversity and inclusion.  She writes for the Representology Journal.  She campaigns for inclusion of journalists from less privileged backgrounds; she is a Punjabi Sikh and attended a comprehensive school in the West Midlands from where she gained a place at Oxford University to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Winner of the prestigious Peabody Award for producing the BBC World Service documentary Europe’s Migrant Crisis, she also received a Foreign Press Association prize presenting and producing the documentary, Chicago Dog Fighting.  Nina worked as a broadcaster and senior journalist for the BBC World Service documentaries unit for over ten years and travelled the world as a shoot-edit, producer, presenter and project manager, often in hostile environments.

Nina was also the BBC’s UK Affairs and Global Development Reporter and headed a citizen journalism hub for the News and Current Affairs Division. Prior to joining the World Service, Nina lived in Kingston, Jamaica as a foreign correspondent.  She completed a Masters in Economics in 2018, is Vice Chair of Governors and is now dedicated to Soundtruism, a media production company, which embodies her passion for authenticity with a commitment to celebrate diverse voices whilst producing high quality original audio/visual content.

Olivia Melkonian is a producer, DJ and sound artist. She has worked across radio, record labels, film production and the cultural sector. Invested in projects of cultural preservation, Olivia archives dialect, ritual and collective memory with a focus on family and the home. Through her practice, she presents memory as a tool of resistance, and recording as an act of revolution.

Music Editor at whynow.

Tim joined PC Pro in 1999, becoming editor in 2004 and hanging around in various positions ever since. He and the team launched the PC Pro podcast in April 2007, making it the longest running tech podcast in the UK. We think. 

When he's not deep-breathing into microphones, Tim edits PC Pro magazine, helps independent publishers launch websites and misses book deadlines.

Zoe Jones founded The Zoder Collective, a Marketing, Branding and Communications Consultancy, in March 2021. Zoe has spent her whole career working in the media industry, with more than 20 years’ marketing experience in multiple sectors. Her responsibilities have included overseeing strategic planning, brand development, internal and external communications, thought leadership, partnerships, research and insight and corporate responsibility.

Zoe’s previous role was Marketing & Insight Director at Digital Cinema Media (DCM) and prior to DCM she held senior marketing and communications roles at Clear Channel and PPA.

Zoe is a regular marketing spokesperson for Marketing Week, Campaign, The Drum and the Marketing Society, contributing to thought pieces, roundtables and conference panels. She was named one of The Drum’s Top 100 Super Marketers and led the DCM Marketing team when named B2B Marketing Team of the Year at The Drum Marketing Awards.

Zoe is also a keen photographer, a fan of sci-fi and fantasy books and films and a passionate supporter of the Welsh rugby team.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/zoeljones