Vox Announces Promotion Of Today, Explained's Sean Rameswaram To Creative Director

Usually, the only people that care about a corporate promotion are the people being promoted and their families. But in the case of Sean Rameswaram's promotion at Vox, there much more going on related to the health profile of podcasting.

Last week, Vox VPs Allison Rockey and Liz Kelly Nelson announced the promotion of Sean Rameswaram to creative director of Vox audio and co-host of Vox’s flagship daily news podcast, Today, Explained. In this new role, Vox noted in its release,  Rameswaram will help take Today, Explained’s reporting in new directions, building on the success of special series it released last year, including “The Trump Years” and “Today, Explained to Kids,” while playing a bigger part in developing new projects for Vox -- in audio and beyond. 

Rameswaram’s promotion creates the need for a co-host of Today, Explained, and in its release, Vox announced that it is also hiring for two new audio roles: editorial director of news audio and editorial director of explanatory audio.

So why am I writing about what is essentially a Vox press release? Stay with me here. A good podcast network is like a first-place major league baseball team, which infuses talent on their club by bringing along younger players in their minor league farm system until they're ready to excel in the big leagues.

Of the 10 largest podcast networks, Vox -- along with NPR -- excel at mentoring young, promising talent on their podcasts. Rameswaram has hosted Today, Explained since it launched in 2018. The show was recently named Best News Podcast in the Podcast Academy's Ambie Awards and the 2021 Webby Awards. 

One of Vox's newer podcasts  -- Unexplainable –  takes listeners on a journey into the unknown and then explores that feeling when “you think you understand something and there’s just so much more.” 

Unexplainable host Noam Hassenfeld, gained his hosting chops on Vox’s Today Explained, with Rameswaram as a reporter and producer. 

In summer 2020, Hassenfeld co-created Today Explained’s first spinoff mini-series, Today, Explained to Kids.  

As a podcast network, Vox appears to operate with the same talent-grooming strategy in mind. And the winners here are the listeners.

NPR has excelled at developing a deep bench of on-air, writing, production and development talent. Most of its major podcast hosts began as reporters and have progressed through a series of assignments that fine-tune their growing talent.

“With Sean transitioning into his new role and two new very focused editorial directors, we’ll be positioned to deepen and grow our work even more,” said Vox VP Kelly Nelson. “I can’t wait to get started. These investments in our future speak to Vox Media’s commitment to audio and what we’ve built here at Vox.”

Contrast this commitment to bringing along home-grown talent with the people development strategies of other podcast networks where  social media influencers, B List celebrities and reality stars are signed for top dollar in lieu of a legitimate talent pool. 

That "throw money at the problem" solution bypasses the longer-term but ultimately more successful master plan of priming new talent through development of that "deep bench."

The Vox release goes on to explain that it is hiring an editorial director of news audio and editorial director of explanatory audio, bolstering an already 30-person-strong audio team. The editorial director of news audio will oversee Vox’s strong and growing portfolio of news audio content, including the teams producing Today, Explained, and Vox’s daily tech news short-form show, Recode Daily. 

The editorial director of explanatory audio will oversee Vox’s portfolio of explanatory audio content, including Unexplainable, recurring narrative journalism series such as The Impact and develop and launch new shows. 

For podcast networks like NPR and Vox, their talent is harvested from the fruits of their own labors, and it's paying off in audio quality, content continuity, and a collaborative workplace culture.