Tinkercast Names Jodi Nussbaum as COO and Ali Paksima as CFO

Tinkercast, the company behind the leading podcasts for kids and families, announced two new senior leadership hires: Children’s Media industry vet Jodi Nussbaum will join as Chief Operating Officer and Ali Paksima will join as Chief Financial Officer.

In these roles, Nussbaum and Paksima will support expansion of flagship franchise Wow in the World and new offerings, Who, When, Wow! And Flip & Mozi’s Guide to How to Be an Earthiling in the U.S and international markets and spearhead development of content for new platforms including smart speakers, edtech and video. Both Nussbaum and Paksima will report to Meredith Halpern-Ranzer, Tinkercast’s co-founder and CEO.

Prior to joining Tinkercast, Nussbaum worked for Sesame Workshop for 26 years, most recently as Vice President Special Project Production. As COO, Nussbaum will use her extensive experience creating digital content, live events, social impact initiatives, and international branded content to lead Tinkercast’s production and operations. Nussbaum will support Tinkercast’s ambitious growth plans by nurturing internal team development, and beyond.

Together with co-founders Meredith Halpern-Ranzer, Mindy Thomas and Guy Ran, Nussbaum will also help launch TinkerLab, a development incubator with internal staff and external “Tinkereres-in-Residence” that will explore new ways to deliver high quality, playful, and meaningful content and experiences to audiences.

“Tinkercast has been head of the curve in developing engaging, educational audio-first content for children,” said Nussbaum. “The opportunity for growth is immense and I look forward to supporting this amazing team of tinkerers for many years to come.”

With more than 20 years of experience in accounting and finance, Paksima earned his MBA from UNC Kenan-Flager Business School in 2021 and serves as GM of Magrid Learning Solutions, an edtech startup focused on improving the development of early visual-spatial and mathematical abilities in children. As CFO, Paksima’s primary responsibility will be the planning, implementation, managing and running of Tinkercast’s finance activities with the goal of driving sustainable growth.

“I am thrilled to join the team at Tinkercast who WOW and inspire millions of children with their innovative content and experiences. Looking at 2022 and beyond, I am excited to help Tinkercast grow and make a positive impact on the lives of children everywhere. If that isn’t amazing enough, my 8-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter are going to go crazy when I tell them I work with Grandma G-Force, Flip and Mozi,” said Paksima.

“We are delighted to welcome these two exceptional leaders as Chief Operational Tinkerer and Chief Financial Tinkerer,” said Meredith Halpern-Ranzer, Tinkercast’s CEO. “We know that Jodi and Ali will help us expand our impact around the world while building a company that is fueled by and fuels curiosity, playfulness and innovation.”

Wondery and Tinkercast Announce New Strategic Partnership

Wondery and Amazon Music, announced a strategic partnership that will begin by focusing around an exclusive licensing and ad sales partnership with all new existing content from Tinkercast, the leading kids and family podcast company.

Starting in September and expanding into 2022, Wondery will gain exclusive rights to Tinkercast merchandise and exclusive distribution and ad sales rights to podcast content, including hit shows Wow in the World, Two Whats and a How, Camp WeWow, and more to come.

Tinkercast will launch two new shows in the coming months: Who, When, Wow! and Flip and Mozi’s Guide to How to Be an Earthling. Created by Tinkercast and hosted by Rebecca Sheir (Circle Round), Who, When, Wow! is an auditory journey into the lives of unsung heroes, unknown heroines, and amazing humans. Each episode immerses kids and their grown-ups in a historical narrative around one fascinating figure you might not hear about in school but brought WOW to our world!

The second new Tinkercast Original follows alien travel guides, Flip and Mozi, who crash their UFO into Earth and have to call a “tow ship” from their home planet. So they do what any good travel writer, blogger, or ponder would do, and decide to wait out the 3,000 lightyears it will take to arrive learning How to Be An Earthling! Flip & Mozi’s Guide to How to Be an Earthling features Tinkercast’s signature “cartoon-for-the-ear” audio animation and The Pop Ups award-winning stylings to inspire today’s kids to find harmony with the earth and be caretakers of all our animal earthlings! Flip & Mozi are curious and not-so-courageous reporters that encourage listeners to explore their own world and submit “field reports” of animals they observe to be featured on the podcast!

New Tinkercast content will be released one week early, exclusively available on both Amazon Music, and ad-free on Wondery+. New episodes will continue to be available on all podcast services after the one-week exclusive window. Additionally, Amazon Music and Wondery will expand Tinkercast’s merchandising business with new products and Prime shipping, and its availability to even more listeners through voice with Alexa.

“Tinkercast has led the way in engaging the hearts, minds and imaginations of young listeners, creating fun ways to educate and enrich their lives,” said Jen Sargent, Wondery CEO. “ We are thrilled to partner with the leader in kids and family audio content as we continue to build our slate of content for everyone to enjoy.”

“We are beyond proud to have our kids and family content live alongside Wondery and Amazon Music shows and we can’t wait to wow audiences with our new original podcasts through this partnership this fall.” said Meredith Halpern-Ranzer, Tinkercast CEO.

Wondery is home to family storytime podcast Little Stories Everywhere hosted by Academy Award Nominated Actor Virginia Madsen and celebrated voice actor Robbie Daymond. Little Stories Everywhere brings you magical, adventurous, fantastical tales for the entire family. And first-of-its-kind immersive storytelling podcast Imagined Life Family, with the same hosts, will take you on an immersive journey into the life of someone who has made a positive impact on the world, from Lin Manuel to Jane Goodall. This new partnership with Tinkercast signals Wondery’s intent to expand even more into the kids and family content space.

Wow in the World is for Curious Kids and Their Grown-Ups

Wow in the World is a new way for families to connect, look up, and discover the wonders in the world around them. It’s the first program produced by Tinkercast, which focuses on family friendly content. Wow in the World is distributed by NPR and will mark the first children’s program the public radio network has launched in its 47-year history.

Wow in the World will launch on May 15, 2017. It is hosted by Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas. For nearly three years, Guy and Mindy co-hosted a Friday news segment on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live channel called Breakfast Blast Newscast. The segment went on to win the International New York Festivals Award for best children’s program in 2016.

Guy Raz is the award-winning host, co-creator, and editorial director of two of NPR’s most popular programs: TED Radio Hour and How I Built This. Both shows are heard by more than 14 million people each month around the world. Mindy Thomas is the Gracie Award winning host of the national, interactive Absolutely Mindy Show, heard weekday mornings on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live Channel.

Wow in the World will take kids (and their grown-ups) on a journey into the most incredible science and kid-friendly news stories of the week. Each episode begins with a series of questions that lead to an explanation about a new amazing scientific discovery or finding. Episodes will highlight some of the most exciting new research about space, dinosaurs, animals, technology, and human origins.