Isabel Salazar joins Podimo as Country Manager in Spain and Juan Galiardo becomes Global Head of Markets

Podimo, the fastest growing podcast and audiobook subscription service in Europe, announces the addition of Isabel Salazar as Country Manager for Spain, a position previously held by Juan Galiardo Sosa, who becomes Podimo’s new Global Head of Markets.

For Podimo, a company founded in Copenhagen in 2019 and which landed in Spain a year later, one of its main objectives is to build a company and a culture that reflects the diversity of the world we live in. This means diversity of talents, voices, ideas and thoughts, which applies to both the brand and its content, creators and teams. The latter, made up of individuals who bring value in discovering, creating and supporting their creators to bring their ideas and stories to life.

“Isabel’s profile is ideal, not only because of her extensive experience managing teams and developing brands like Google in Spain, but also because of her energy and human qualities. At Podimo we place a lot of importance on values and in Isabel we saw a very good fit from the very first moment”. Juan Galiardo

An exciting job that, in turn, focuses on developing their internal team and their varied skill sets, developing talent from within and thus being strategic in bringing in the right people at the right time to help them achieve their goals. “I join at a sweet moment, so to speak, as Podimo already has 100k users in Spain and remarkable recognition. We have reference shows and top level creators. That’s why I also want to thank Juan for his work, whom I succeed in this role”. Isabel Salazar.

These two announcements bring a new perspective to Podimo’s Spanish team, as well as to each of the local teams that will now be represented under the figure of Juan Galiardo, for the growth of the business: reflected in the more than 120 shows premiered in the last year, and in the consumption in hours that has multiplied x7, compared to what had grown in the previous year. These objectives have been achieved in addition to its main annual goal: to continue growing its subscriber base. “This new phase is a unique opportunity to get to know more closely the different markets in which we operate and to be able to work more closely with our local teams, from Finland to Mexico. It is also a huge responsibility, not only for the hundreds of thousands of users, but above all for the hundreds of creators who rely on us as a platform, as a loudspeaker for their stories and their work”.

Isabel Salazar, Country Manager

Isabel Salazar joined the Podimo team at the end of April. She has more than 20 years of experience in leadership, budget and international team management, branding and market research.

Salazar comes from working at companies such as Google, where she spent 10 years, reaching the position of Head of Consumer & Brand Marketing. She has also been the PR & Marketing Director at Motorola and the Country Manager of ManoMano, the largest e-commerce specialized in products and services of the DIY, gardening and home universe in Europe.

One of Salazar’s objectives is precisely to capture new leads, maximize Podimo’s growth and oversee all operations within the country. With an extensive track record to back her up, Salazar has proven to have the skills and specialized knowledge related to this sector, which makes her the ideal candidate for the position of Country Manager for Podimo in Spain.

“I am very excited about this new opportunity to lead the Podimo team in Spain and carry out its mission of providing high quality, yet locally relevant podcast content. As Country Manager, my main short-term goal is to increase Podimo’s user base by offering the best shows while working closely with great creators. Spain is a country with a highly engaged audio culture and the podcast industry is experiencing its best moment, not only because of the progressive growth of users, but also because of the great talent we have. Our ultimate goal from Podimo is to generate a strong connection with our community of users thanks to the content we offer exclusively, and I can anticipate that we have great releases planned”.

Juan Galiardo, Global Head of Markets

Juan Galiardo has more than 10 years of experience in the areas of communication, entertainment, management and strategy. He was the founder and board member of Noysi, a communication application for teams, designed to help organizations reduce dependence on email in their daily conversations, improving productivity and reducing costs. He also spent seven years working at Uber, first as Operations Manager and later as Director in Spain.

Upon arriving at Podimo in March 2022, Galiardo demonstrated a great understanding of the podcast business and audio content creators. He challenged the brand’s existing way of working and strategy, while at the same time helping to take a major step forward in Spain. Bringing together very specific skills and a deep understanding of Podimo’s internal business, Galiardo has proven to be a very qualified leader for the position of Global Head of Markets. He will be in charge of representing the local markets in the leadership team, prioritizing the bets that have the greatest impact on the ground.

“The main challenge will be to be able to dig deep enough into each market and its particularities to be able to extract relevant learnings that can be applied in other markets. As well as finding a good balance between applying the learnings/best practices that we are having and maintaining the level of autonomy with which each market has been able to operate so far and the innovative culture that has allowed us to get this far”.