Independent podcast company Blanchard House has welcomed award-winning former BBC foreign correspondent and author Emma Jane Kirby as a podcast producer.
After working at the BBC for nearly 30 years, Kirby has joined a team of 20 award-winning audio producers and respected journalists, including co-founder and CEO Kimberly Jung, co-founder and creative director Rosie Pye, and co-founder and host Alex Wiltschko.
“We are so thrilled to welcome EJ to the team- to have a writer and broadcaster of this calibre is fantastic,” said Pye. “Her previous work speaks for itself, and we can’t wait to see what we can create together at Blanchard.”
“I’m delighted to join the energetic, dynamic and talented team at BH who really share my passion for storytelling,” said Kirby. “It is so exciting to start this new adventure and to create new tales to tell together.”
Blanchard house was founded in 2021 as an independent podcast company that aims to tell “stories that have the power to endure”. Since launching, the company has won a number of awards for flagship shows it produced including The Times’ daily news podcast Stories of our times, BBC Radio 4’s daily news podcast Beyond Today, Audible’s true crime podcast Murderabilia, and more.
After securing a $1 million investment in November 2021, the company also partnered with journalist Joe Nocera, host of Wondery’s The Shrink Next Door, in October 2022 to create two new true-crime podcasts on Audible, one inspired by an Agatha Christie novel and the other by an iconic American drama. Both shows will be co-written and hosted by Nocera and produced by Blanchard House.