After three and a half years as Mamamia’s head of podcasts, Elissa Ratliff, will be departing the business.
“I’ve made the hard decision not to return post maternity leave,” Ratliff wrote on LinkedIn.
“My family and I are about to relocate out of Sydney and I’m embarking on a career change, returning to university to get some new skills. While I’m studying I’ll also be freelancing and working on projects big and small.”
Ratliff joined Mamamia in 2012, with a brief break at the company from 2019 to 2020, when she worked at Seven West Media’s Pacific Magazines and the ABC.
Upon returning to the company, Ratliff took on the head of podcasts and, eventually, deputy editorial director roles. In her time with the podcasting department, Ratliff oversaw the launch of over 20 new shows.
The Mamamia podcast network includes titles such as Out Loud, No Filter, Cancelled, The Baby Bubble, Nothing To Wear, and You Beauty.
On Thursday, Mamamia introduced Sam to the market – a dynamic AI-powered voice trained on hundreds of hours of Mamamia podcasts. Sam will work to unlock programmatic audio advertising across the Mamamia network, with close to real-time turnarounds.
Jessie-Lee Klass, podcasts content director, said that while AI is at the core of the Sam voice, human oversight remains imperative to ensure high quality standards.
“Sam frees up our talented creators and producers to focus on what they do best – crafting brilliant content and working on more bespoke integrations for our partners.
See also: Mamamia introduces Sam, AI voice to boost brand messaging
Natalie Harvey was also named the media company’s chief executive officer this week, four months after she joined the independent women’s media group in January.
She joined the company as chief revenue officer and will step up as CEO on 1 June, taking over from co-founder and CEO Jason Lavigne, who will shift into the role of executive chair.
See Also: Mamamia promotes Natalie Harvey to CEO