Sony Music Entertainment (SME) has named the senior leadership team driving its expansion in the increasingly lucrative podcasting space.
In internal memo obtained by MBW, Dennis Kooker (pictured), President, Global Digital Business & US Sales and Tom Mackay, President, Sony Music Film and TV A&R, name the execs and state that the company wants to ‘acknowledge the team that has been leading our expansion in this key area of creative and business development.’
The four New York-based executives named in the memo are Emily Rasekh, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Operations, Podcasting; Vice President of Sales, Podcasting Brittany Hall; Ryan Zack who is Vice President of Revenue Operations, Podcasting and Christy Mirabal, who is Vice President of Marketing, Podcasting.
Emily Rasekh is focused on driving strategic expansion of Sony Music’s partnership, distribution and monetization opportunities in the podcast space. She reports to Cooker and Mackay.
Prior to Sony Music, Rasekh was Vice President of Digital Partnerships at Entercom overseeing digital content distribution strategy, including financial targets across digital, mobile and emerging platforms.
“Together this leadership team strongly positions us to super-serve the podcast community, help them reach larger audiences on more platforms and further grow our podcasting business opportunities around the world.”
Dennis Kooker & Tom Mackay
As Vice President of Sales, Podcasting, Hall is responsible for overseeing the commercial strategy and monetization of podcasts from Sony Music and its partners. She reports to Rasekh.
Hall was previously at Pandora where she was tasked with driving revenue from clients across all verticals and showcasing robust product offerings, including podcasts, for clients in the audio advertising community.
Meanwhile, Zack oversees Sony Music’s ad operations strategy, pricing and inventory management, and serves as a key communication link between the Finance and Sales teams to establish best practices for billing, reporting, forecasting and pipeline reporting. He also reports to Rasekh.
Zack was previously at Megaphone, where he led the day-to-day efforts for the Sales Planning, Advertising Operations and Advertising Solutions teams. He has also held leading advertising operation roles at Acast AB, GoPro, and Spotify to maximize monetization.
Rounding off the appointments is Mirabal, who as Vice President of Marketing, Podcasting oversees all strategic marketing, including planning, development and execution of initiatives to drive branding and awareness of our podcast projects Mirabal also reports to Rasekh.
Mirabal previously led the brand team at Stitcher, overseeing partnerships, sponsorships, and editorial for the podcast app.
The major music group’s podcasting ambitions were first revealed in May when it inked a JV with podcast developers Adam Davidson and Laura Mayer to ‘find and develop original podcast talent and programming’.
One fo the first original content series to come from the JV was a podcast to investigate the case of Jeffrey Epstein, titled Broken: Jeffrey Epstein.
Last month, comedy and news satire brand The Onion entered into a strategic partnership with SME have to develop original podcast content.
In October, podcast producer Renay Richardson and Sony Music UK launched a new multi-genre podcasting joint venture called Broccoli Content.
“As we continue to grow our podcasting business, we want to acknowledge the team that has been leading our expansion in this key area of creative and business development,” said the note from Dennis Kooker, President, Global Digital Business & U.S. Sales and Tom Mackay, President, Sony Music Film and TV A&R.
“Together this leadership team strongly positions us to super-serve the podcast community, help them reach larger audiences on more platforms and further grow our podcasting business opportunities around the world.
“With a rapidly expanding number of creative partnerships and with the strength of our best-in-class capabilities, we are confident they will keep enhancing Sony Music’s compelling value proposition in the podcasting industry.”
Music Business Worldwide
