Lemonada Media, the podcast network that makes life suck less, announced new additions to its production team, led by co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Stephanie Wittles Wachs. On the heels of securing $8M in funding, Lemonada has quickly been able to expand its in-house production team to keep up with its current slate of 21 original podcasts, which reaches millions of listeners per month and will grow to over 30 original podcasts in 2022.

In 2021, Lemonada tripled its revenue, added 10 new shows, designed and trademarked an audio reality series (BEING Studios), and co-created original shows like Written Off with Jay Ellis’ Black Bar Mitzvah and Believe Her with publishing house Speigel & Grau, which launched at the top of the podcast charts.

Joining the company is Steve Nelson, as Vice President of Content & Production overseeing Lemonada’s always-on slate. Most recently, Steve served as the Head of Talk at Religion of Sports and prior to that, Senior Director of Programming at NPR and Director of On-Demand Programming at APM.

Steve’s team will be bolstered by two additional new hires: Rachel Neel, most recently NPR’s Supervising Senior Producer, in an new role at Lemonada as Senior Director of New Content, leading the development, pre-production, and launch of Lemonada’s rapidly growing portfolio of originals on its always-on slate; as well as MPR Lead Producer Kyle Shiely, who ran both Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and will now serve as Senior Producer of In The Bubble with Andy Slavitt, Lemonada’s popular and calming series that will shift to three times per week as of May.

Steve will work alongside Jackie Danziger (Vice President of Content & Production for Lemonada’s narrative slate) and Kasey Barrett (head of BEING Studios) and their growing teams.

Wittles Wachs says, “We are thrilled to welcome these exceptionally talented leaders to our growing production team who help Lemonada continue to scale our original weekly podcast programming and expand our mission to make life suck less.”

Jessica Cordova Kramer, Lemonada’s co-founder and CEO added, “And that goes for our work culture as well. In addition to having a skilled and diverse team, we are committed to prioritizing the well-being of our staff with benefits like 7 weeks paid time off annually, including 2.5 weeks of company-wide time to prevent burnout and foster creativity; parental leave that is inclusive of all genders, foster and adoption; full benefits and stock options for all full-time, permanent staff to date; as well as flex hours and flex location with co-working opportunities.