Spotify has promoted Mimi O’Donnell, the head of scripted content at Gimlet, to oversee scripted fiction at the audio giant, a company spokesperson confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday.
At Gimlet, the podcast studio that Spotify acquired in 2019, the O’Donnell executive produced fiction series such as Sandra, with Kristen Wiig and Alia Shawkat, and Final Chapters by Richard Brown Winters, with a voice cast including Darrell Britt-Gibson, Bobby Cannavale, Catherine Keener, Parker Posey and Sam Waterston.
O’Donnell will report to Julie McNamara, who, as head of talk studios, leads Spotify’s original content and studio operations.
Gimlet manager promotion signals Spotify’s increased focus on narrative fiction podcastsespecially after the success with the series Batman unburied, which came about as part of Spotify’s multi-year deal with Warner Bros./DC and quickly rose to the top of the audio giant’s podcast rankings after debuting in May. The following message from that partnership, Harley Quinn & The Joker: Sound Mindhas started production and has Christina Ricci as Harley Quinn, Billy Magnussen as the Joker and Justin Hartley as Batman.
Other fiction series in the works include the English adaptation of Cabinet 63 with Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. O’Donnell will co-produce the series with Moore and Isaac.
The edge first made mention of O’Donnell’s promotion.