We are so proud and honored to feature these amazing women as the very first Sonic Bloom Awards judges! Please click on the pink button next to their name to learn all about them, and then click on their websites and follow all of them on social media! You’ll be a smarter podcaster for doing so.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Tangia Al-awaji Estrada
A former campaign director and community organizer turned public relations pro. Tangia is the founder and Principle Consultant of Tangia Renee Consulting and Co-Founder of BIPOC Podcast Creators.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Alexandra Cohl
Alexandra Cohl is a PR & marketing consultant at her company POD.DRALAND, which centers on amplifying women-hosted podcasts. Her current and past clients include nj.com’s chart-topping true crime podcast Father Wants Us Dead (5M+ downloads & named a Best New Podcast of 2022 by Variety), award-winning indie podcast Immigrantly, Spotify Original You Heard Me Write, Apple featured podcast I Swear on My Mother’s Grave, and more. She writes the newsletter Podcasting by the Moon, which centers women in podcasting news and recommendations. She also works with women podcasters on their PR and marketing efforts in her exclusive membership Broads in Progress and hosts & produces the podcast The Pod Broads: A Podcast About Women in Podcasting. When she isn’t doing all her podcast related things, you can often find her reading fantasy novels, keeping up with her Italian Duolingo streak, and asking her cat, Zuko, “Are you a cute baby?” for the millionth time.
Find Alexandra here:
Headshot credits: https://www.julesandfilm.com/
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Brianne Davis
With over a decade in recovery, actress Brianne Davis shares her transformation journey of overcoming sex and love addiction and how she strengthened her relationships to move from shame to self-love. By stopping the destructive patterns of using people, places, and things to fulfill her, she shares the work she’s done on herself to help others understand the deadly disease. With over 13 years of recovery as a Sex and Love Addict, Brianne hosts the popular personal journal podcast “Secret Life.” The podcast launched in August 2020 and features inspiring true confessions from an eclectic group of guests, unpacking a plethora of taboo topics. Brianne’s latest venture in the “Secret Life” brand is her debut novel, “Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict,” which instantly hit the best-sellers list on Amazon. She is a renowned sober coach in addiction recovery. She has spoken on over 250 podcasts and television shows, including The Doctors, The Daily Blast, and many more as an advocate for creating awareness of the deadly disease of sex and love addiction. She has also penned several articles on the subject for Cosmopolitan UK, Daily Beast, HuffPost, and The Drill. She is currently in rewrites for the follow-up novel of the Secret Life series and developing it as a tv series.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Angel Livas
For over 20 years, Angel has used her expertise as an effective liaison, executive producer, and director to oversee some of the nation’s favorite–and most highly respected shows. Her corporate resume includes executive roles for award-winning hosts Larry King and Jane Pauley. Angel has also worked for reputable networks such as NBC, Bloomberg, AARP, and more! Her behind-the-scenes experiences prompted her to bridge the gap between Black creatives and protecting their content.
After seeing how networks would reject and often relabel the content of Black creatives, she birthed the one-of- a-kind, innovative distribution platform, ALIVE Podcast Network. The online and mobile app platform focuses on amplifying black voices while allowing them to take control of their intellectual content through monetization. It also gives subscribers access to their favorite shows in one central location. To date, the acclaimed platform was a 2022 NAACP Image Award nominee for the hit podcast ‘Under Construction w/ Tamar Braxton’ and a 2022 Communicator Excellence Award recipient for her podcast ‘The Devil Is A Lie.’
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Jennifer Navarette
Jennifer Navarrete has been podcasting since 2005, believes everyone has a story to share, and that podcasting is the perfect platform to share it!
Whether she’s hosting an annual podcasting movement like National Podcast Post Month (NaPodPoMo), leading local and online communities through her company Brewing Media, Jennifer educates and empowers women entrepreneurs and business professionals about the highly engaging communication audio mediums of podcasting and social audio.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Arielle Nissenblatt
Arielle Nissenblatt is the head of community and content at SquadCast.fm. She’s the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective. She wants to help creators grow their podcasts by way of effective (and fun!) marketing. And she wants to help listeners find their next favorite podcasts.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Lauren Passell
Lauren Passell is the founder of Tink Media, a podcast growth company. She is the editor of Podcast the Newsletter and Podcast Marketing Magic, is the co-host of Feed the Queue, and writes about podcasts for Lifehacker. She has spoken about podcast marketing for Radio Bootcamp, SXSW, Podcast Movement, Podfest, London Podcast Festival and more. She is a judge for Signal Awards and the International Women’s Podcast Awards.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Skye Pillsbury
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Maribel Quezada Smith
Her video credits include producing shows for the Discovery family of networks, Netflix, Oxygen and A&E, and digital content for brands like AARP, GolfNow and SquadCast FM.
She’s currently a Producer and Co-host on The Pulso Podcast, exploring the unheard stories and voices of the latino community. In 2021, Maribel co-founded BIPOC Podcast Creators, an organization devoted to amplifying the voices and stories of people of color. She regularly shares her expertise on topics like this around global stages.
Today, she helps brands build deeper connections with their ideal customers through meaningful video and audio content.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
JJ Ramburg
JJ Ramberg is the co-founder of Goodpods, the podcast listening platform helping listeners find the best podcasts and podcasters grow and engage with their audience. Goodpods has been named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and JJ has been recognized for her work with Goodpods as one of Inc Magazine’s Female Founders 100. Previous to starting Goodpods, JJ was an anchor on MSNBC for more than a decade and co-founded Goodshop, a socially responsible coupon site which has raised more than $13 million for causes across the US. She is the best-selling author of two books.
Rita Bautista
Rita Bautista is the Founder + CEO of the Latina Podcasters Network. Her love for podcasting began with the launch of her first podcast in 2019. After seeing the lack of representation of Latinas in the podcast media space, Rita began to impact the media landscape of podcasting by curating a network of Latina Podcasters and connecting brands to the Latina and Latinx Podcast Talent in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The network now has 150K+ monthly downloads (2.5 million lifetime downloads) and over 40+
podcasts in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Rita recently launched Latino Pods as she discovered there was a need for the expansion of male and Latinx voices in the medium.
Over a short time, she has generated over $1MM in ad buys from blue chip companies including McDonald’s, Infinity, Cox, Ulta Beauty, First Republic Bank, JPMorgan and many more. When Rita isn’t busy focusing on building global podcast networks to create representation and ensure pay parity for the Latinx community, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and spending time outdoors with her puppy Louis.
Shreya Sharma
Shreya Sharma is the writer and curator of Inside Podcasting, a newsletter which covers everything from industry news to new podcasts with a special focus on independent creators. Additionally, she’s also a Marketing Strategist at FRQNCY Media and Writer at Tink Media. Her favourite podcast genres are sci-fi, comedy, TTRPG, or a combination thereof. After a 5-year stint in Vancouver, she can currently be found bathing in sunlight in Dubai.
