In a new demonstration of ART19’s history of using Stitcher as a fertile executive hunting ground, the podcasting technology and monetization company has hired David Murray as its new CFO. Last year (February 2019) ART19 hired Stitcher execs Lex Friedman and Korri Kolesa in a remarkable double grab.
Murray held the same CFO title at Stitcher from June of 2017. Before that Murray was at Scripps, which acquired Stitcher and Midroll a couple of years before — Murray was influential in those acquisitions. (Stitcher and Midroll Media were entirely separate companies back then, bought by Stitcher in different deals.)
Stitcher recently changed parent companies when Scripps sold the outfit to SiriusXM. Executive shuffles and departures are not uncommon when two companies are mashed together, the acquired firms often subsumed into established leadership hierarchies.
At any rate, this hire certainly follows a chain of connected events. Here’s the history:
- July 2015: Scripps acquires Midroll Media.
- June 2016: Scripps buys the Stitcher podcast app from Deezer. Stitcher is joined with Midroll Media, with Midroll as the parent entity.
- June 2017: Midroll brings in David Murray from within Scripps. (At the same time, Midroll hired Amy Fitzgibbons as VP of Marketing, now CMO, and Executive producer Laura Mayer, who became Co-founder of Three Uncanny Four in May 2019.
- September 2018: Scripps rebrands the Midroll/Stitcher combination. Stitcher becomes the public-facing brand for the combined podcast content and advertising powerhouse.
- February 2019: Lex Friedman (Chief business Development Officer, Stitcher) and Korri Kolesa (Chief Revenue Office, Stitcher) depart the company for ART19 in an striking simultaneous hire that reverberates in the podcast executive stratosphere. Friedman becomes Chief Revenue Officer at ART19; Kolesa becomes Chief Operating Officer.
- July 2020: Scripps sells Stitcher to SiriusXM.
Back to David Murray. He will help lead the company’s expansion from pure SaaS business into a full-fledged media company, including content creation and ad sales. In the last year, ART19 announced the launch of its Targeted Ad Sales division as well as
subsidiary ART19 Media, which marked its foray into content and direct ad sales.
Murray began his career in the financial services sector with the Cincinnati-based Insurance conglomerate Great American Insurance Companies Group.
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