Indira Birnie leaves Penguin Random House for Novel

Penguin Random House’s Senior Marketing Manager Indira Birnie is moving to premium audio company, Novel, to become their new Head of Marketing and Communications.

Birnie will be responsible for Novel’s marketing and communications strategy and will lead on campaigns for the award-winning company’s slate of new show launches.

During her twelve years at Penguin Random House, Birnie has worked across various roles in publicity, digital marketing, social media, brand and podcasting. She has worked on Penguin’s social media strategy, introducing the company’s personalised book recommendation service #AskPenguin, and her work as a marketer and executive producer on the youth culture podcast This Is Spoke led to winning Consumer Media Podcast of the Year at the Campaign Publishing Awards, a Bronze at the British Podcast Awards and being named an Official Webby Honoree, the awards which aim to recognise “the best of the internet”.

More recently, as Senior Manager, Penguin Audiences, she has spearheaded a rebrand of the Penguin Podcast, which launched last week, and her work on the company’s flagship Penguin Podcast led to winning Best Entertainment Podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards in 2020. Last week, she was shortlisted for Publisher Podcast Hero of the Year at the Publisher Podcast Awards, where the Penguin Podcast is also shortlisted in the Best Books & Literature Podcast category. In 2020, she was named the Bookseller’s Shooting Star – the first ever marketer to be named in this position.

Birnie, who starts her new role at Novel in late February, said: “I’ve had a wonderful time championing the voices of books and authors over the past twelve years at Penguin Random House. I’ll miss them and my colleagues, but I’m thrilled to be starting a new chapter at Novel. Podcasting continues to be as popular as ever and as a huge admirer of the exceptional stories Novel are telling, I’m looking forward to stepping into such a dynamic company with big ambitions.”

Matt O’Mara, Managing Director at Novel, said: “We’re thrilled that after a long search, we’ve found someone of Indira’s calibre to drive our marketing and PR efforts, at a really exciting time for the company. 2022 is going to be another transformational year after an unbelievable 2021.”