Stories that have the power to endure.

FOUNDER, CEO

Kim is a former US Army engineer officer, educated at Harvard Business School, MIT, and the US Military Academy at West Point. After her deployments in Afghanistan, she co-founded and led Rumi Spice as their CEO, employing over 4,000 Afghan women.

FOUNDER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Rosie is an audio producer, editor and multimedia producer with 15 years of experience at BBC programmes. She led the team making one of the BBC’s early experimental podcasts, iPM, for which she won a Radio Academy Award. Rosie joined The Economist to produce their flagship podcast, Economist Asks, leaving in 2020 to create Blanchard House. Here, she leads the development team creating original content for Apple TV, Wondery, Audible and Google.

FOUNDER, HOST, PARTNERSHIPS

Alex hosts Google Ventures’ podcast, Theory & Practice. He is a research scientist at Google Brain, and his work focuses on building more flexible machine learning software systems and applying machine learning to biology. Alex loves the science and psychology behind telling stories, both in written and verbal form. He completed his PhD in Neurobiology at Harvard.

HEAD OF CONTENT

Laurence is a visionary audio creator who helped to shape and define audio storytelling on the BBC for over 15 years. As a multi award-winning producer in the BBC’s Documentaries Unit, he earned a reputation for crafting stories in bold and exciting new ways – as well as pushing boundaries in the use of music and sound. His shows include The Californian Century, Wireless Nights and The Untold. He’s a winner of the Prix Italia, as well two awards from the Third Coast International Audio Festival.

HEAD OF PARTNERSHIPS & STRATEGY

Hassan joins Blanchard House with seven years of experience in media and entertainment at HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery. He established and led the award-winning HBO Max Podcasting group, which produced and distributed shows including The Official Game of Thrones Podcast, HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, and Batman: The Audio Adventures. He previously held roles in content strategy, film programming, new business development, and direct-to-consumer streaming. At Blanchard House, he leads the growth and management of film and TV relationships.

HOST

Joe Nocera is a veteran journalist and podcaster. He has been a columnist with the New York Times, Bloomberg, Esquire and GQ. His 2019 podcast, The Shrink Next Door, won a Webby for best documentary podcast and was turned into a major TV series starring Paul Rudd and Will Ferreli. His hit podcast The Pirate of Prague was released in 2023. His latest book, The Big Fail, recounts America's failed response to the pandemic. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

HEAD OF DEVELOPMENT

Duncan is an award-winning audio producer with nearly a decade’s experience in podcasts and public radio. He started his career on BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programmes; Today, the World at One and PM. Later he helped to develop and launch the BBC’s award-winning podcast Beyond Today. He joined the Economist as a senior producer on its daily news podcast, The Intelligence. In 2021 he launched the newspaper’s first stand-alone podcast series, The Jab, on the global vaccination campaign for covid-19.

HEAD OF RIGHTS

James has over fifteen years’ experience in trade publishing and has worked in Contracts and Business Affairs for 3 of the “Big 5” publishers in the UK, as well as freelancing for literary agencies and independents. In that time he has supported more than 30 market-leading imprints including Jonathan Cape, BBC Books, Macmillan Children’s Books, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline and Picador.

HEAD OF BRAND, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Jess is a brand strategist and communications specialist with 10 years of experience applying her extensive knowledge of contemporary culture and trends in commercial settings. She’s worked with agencies including Ragged Edge, Design Studio, DLMDD, and Here Design, as well as directly with brands including Bombay Sapphire, Logitech, V&A, British Journal of Photography, Brighton Festival and Studio Voltaire. She’s also a musician and songwriter, represented by Domino Publishing.

HEAD OF SOUND & MUSIC

Daniel is a composer and sound designer who has worked on podcasts such as The Intelligence, Google Ventures’ Theory & Practice, London School of Economics, and TV including the BBC’s Cities: Nature’s New Wild and National Geographic’s Primal Survivor.

MANAGING PRODUCER

Amica is an award-winning audio producer. Previously at The Economist, she helped build their audio features team where she was most recently editor of Checks and Balance, a weekly podcast on American politics, history and society. Her feature Trapped in Iran was shortlisted for Podcast of the Year by the Foreign Press Association, and as lead producer of Money Talks, The Economist’s flagship business and finance series, she twice won gold at the British Podcast Awards. Amica also led a project with The Economist Education Foundation to enable children around the world to tell their stories through audio.

DEPUTY HEAD OF SOUND & MUSIC

Louis is an experienced composer, musician and producer. He has written music for The Economist, Google, LSE, Aston Martin and many more. In addition to his commercial work he has worked in the charity sector, helping disadvantaged individuals find their voice.

PRODUCER

Seren is a BAFTA nominated Welsh, Zimbabwean journalist shortlisted by the Radio Academy as one of their 30 Under 30 in 2020. Seren was one of the founding producers of the BBC’s Beyond Today podcast before going on to produce the award-winning Newscast and launching R1Xtra’s If You Don’t Know podcast. Seren also co-founded the Black Swimming Association (the BSA), a charity set up to encourage more people from African, Caribbean and Asian communities to engage in aquatics.

PRODUCER

Poppy is an award-winning executive podcast producer and investigative radio journalist, previously at The Times and The Sunday Times. Her work includes The Full Fact 2015 election podcast, The Next Episode, Brexicast and Americast at the BBC and Stories of our times at the Times of London. She is also the co-creator of Murderabilia, Blood Ties and Pseudocide. As a screenwriter she is represented by Independent Talent.

PRODUCER, PRESENTER

Becky is a multi award-winning journalist joining Blanchard House from the BBC, where she presented the Radio 4 documentary Profile and created, produced and presented one of the first podcasts for the BBC, “At Lunch with…” Her podcast series The Home Babies was awarded Gold at the New York Festivals Radio Awards.

PRODUCER

Emma Jane Kirby joins Blanchard House after nearly 30 years at the BBC as a multi award-winning foreign correspondent, documentary maker, story-liner and script editor. She won the International Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents for her reporting on the migration crisis and is the author of The Optician of Lampedusa, (Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature, Financial Times Political Books of the Year, and Waterstones Books of The Year). She’s represented by David Higham.

PRODUCER

Ben Crighton joins Blanchard House from the BBC, where he spent two decades as a journalist in Radio Current Affairs. He produced single documentaries and multipart series for Radio 4 and World Service, including Profile, Chinese Characters and both series of the hugely successful 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy which won Silver at the British Podcast Awards. Most recently he produced Bad Cops, a true crime podcast for the BBC World Service.

LEAD SOUND DESIGNER

Volkan is a sound designer and field recordist who brings a wealth of experience in sound arts and broadcast audio. Previously he has worked with Bloomberg Television, Somethin’ Else, The Times and The Sunday Times. He has worked on podcasts such as Stories of Our Times, Thinking Straight, Out To Lunch with Jay Rayner, Katy Brand and Katherine Parkinson’s Women Like Us and The Penguin Podcast from Penguin Random House.

DEVELOPMENT PRODUCER

Himmat is an experienced journalist and podcaster based in India who has worked previously with The Quint and New Delhi Television (NDTV). His work includes hosting and producing The Big Story an award-winning daily news analysis podcast, with end-to-end production of over 200 episodes. He has also produced an independent podcast series Developing, from Papua New Guinea, focusing on the country’s media freedom.

ASSISTANT AUDIO ENGINEER

As a freelance editor, Toby has produced contemporary classical music for Hyperion and Naxos record labels, as well as recitals for broadcast by Classic FM and BBC Radio 3. He was previously an arts administrator in schools and universities. He is a professional singer and won the Sheila Mossman Memorial Prize for piano in 2013.

CONSULTING PRODUCER

Shane is a award-winning playwright and audio producer. He began his career in film and TV production, and producing stand-up comedy tours, later working as a Live Events Producer at the David Lynch Foundation. In 2020 he created the fiction podcast, Human Enough. He currently holds positions as a Content Producer and Executive Business Partner for GV (fka Google Ventures), where he worked on the Blanchard House podcast, Theory and Practice. In 2021 Shane’s stage play, Rainfall The Band, won Best Short Play at the NY Theaterfestival, and was adapted into the short film of the same name.

EXECUTIVE & PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Hanifa graduated from MSU Science Education in 2020. She joins Blanchard House with 5 years experience as a researcher and writer, and 2 years as an Executive Assistant. She’s based in the Philippines.