Stephanie Smellie is Head of Business Development at Patreon. She has spent more than a decade at the intersection of entertainment, the creator economy, and emerging tech, with leadership roles at Sony, iHeartMedia, Spotify, and blockchain startup Dapper Labs before joining Patreon in April 2024. At Patreon, she focuses on partnerships that expand tools and monetization opportunities for creators, with podcasts emerging as the platform’s highest‑earning content category.

Brendan Monaghan is the CEO of Libsyn and co-founder of Megaphone. He explains why Spotify acquired Megaphone in 2020 for $235 million, why he left Megaphone a year later, and why he returned to lead Libsyn.

Mia Lobel is a seasoned producer with over 20 years in the game. She shares raw insights from her journey through startup at Panoply, the explosive growth at Pushkin, and her current role shaping Slate’s future. She discusses the unsustainable grind that led her to leave behind four years of relentless work, and what it really takes to build a resilient, meaningful podcasting career amid turbulence.

Clio de la Llave and Nadine Robinson are the co-founders of Podcast Nation, a creator-first network born out of their influencer marketing agency, Booje Media. We discuss how they evolved from managing social creators to building one of the most distinctive podcast businesses, why integrating audio with social and talent is now central to modern podcast advertising, and what they’ve learned from scaling shows like The Telepathy Tapes, Dear Shandy, and The Mom Room.

Podcast awards can offer numerous benefits beyond just winning. Whether you become a nominee or a winner, entering a podcast awards competition enhances visibility, builds credibility, and showcases expertise. And being an “award-nominated” or “award-winning” show can help attract guests and collaborators, increase media exposure and the potential for podcast app feature opportunities, and open up avenues for monetization. So how should you budget for podcast awards submissions in 2026? What are

Jerry Kolber is the Emmy-nominated producer behind Nat Geo’s Brain Games and Netflix’s Brainchild, and co-creator and host of family podcast Who Smarted? through his company Atomic Entertainment. We discuss his shift from educational TV to family podcasting, why he believes this is the “Story Age” for brands and creators, and Atomic Entertainment’s emphasis on paid growth, specifically buying Facebook ads.