Spotify has appointed new managing directors for its Gimlet and Parcast podcast studios — Nicole Beemsterboer and Liliana Kim, respectively — coming amid the company’s cancellation of 11 original podcasts from the two divisions.
Spotify elevated Beemsterboer (above left), a former longtime NPR exec who joined Spotify this year, to the role of Gimlet’s managing director. She takes over for Lydia Polgreen, who left Spotify this spring to rejoin the New York Times as an opinion columnist.
Prior to joining as Gimlet’s head of news and knowledge in March, Beemsterboer spent more than 15 years at NPR as a producer where she led the creation and reorganization of the public media org’s first longform podcast unit, the Enterprise Storytelling Unit. At NPR, Beemsterboer worked on shows including “Embedded,” “Invisibilia” and “White Lies.”
Kim (above right) will join Spotify as the new managing director of Parcast effective Nov. 7. Most recently, she worked for three years at American Public Media where she was general manager of APM Studios. Previously she had worked at Viacom, most recently as VP of international content strategy and brand management, and at HBO as a project manager and sales/marketing coordinator.
Kim fills the Parcast role left vacant after Spotify earlier this year promoted Max Cutler — who joined Spotify in 2019with its acquisition of Parcast, which he co-founded — to head of talk creator content and partnerships for Spotify. Cutler reports to Dawn Ostroff, chief content officer and advertising business officer.
Both Beemsterboer and Kim report to Julie McNamara, Spotify’s U.S. head of studios and video, who reports to Ostroff.
Spotify announced the new roles for Beemsterboer and Kim in a note to staff after the company informed the teams working on 11 shows that the programs were being axed; about 5% of Spotify’s total podcast headcount was affected, with staff members either laid off or reassigned. The shows being canceled are: from Gimlet, “How to Save a Planet,” “Crime Show” and “Every Little Thing”; and from Parcast, “Medical Murders,” “Female Criminals,” “Crimes of Passion,” “Dictators,” “Mythology,” “Haunted Places,” “Urban Legends” and “Horoscope Today.”
