About Us
November 25, 2019 2020-10-13 15:41About Us
About
Pacific Content is a leading podcast services company and is helping some of the world’s biggest brands to create and market compelling audio stories.
Our team is made up of veteran media professionals and experts in podcast production, strategy, marketing, distribution and sound design.
A diversely talented group, our team brings to the table decades of experience, expertise and insight and has helped to create some of the most successful, ambitious, and influential branded podcasts.
We hail from different backgrounds but share a common passion for bringing brands to life through impactful audio stories that entertain, educate, move and inspire audiences.
The Team
Steve Pratt
Co-Founder | Business Development
Biography
Steve co-founded Pacific Content in 2014 to help brands and marketers transform into successful media companies through podcasting. He loves helping our partners turn brand strategy into compelling podcasts and learning how to activate the superpowers of brands to build large audiences quickly.
Steve has always been obsessed with what is new and next in the media. Prior to Pacific Content, his career included TV startups, satellite radio startups, and digital music startups. He has been podcasting since 2005, when he co-created one of the world’s first and most successful music podcasts at CBC.
Jennifer Ouano
Co-Founder | Executive Producer
Biography
Jennifer Ouano loves creating and building things from scratch and seeing them manifest into reality – stories, shows, teams, and businesses. She’s a stickler for detail and gets excited about innovative ways of thinking and doing. She feels very fortunate to be working with the bright and talented minds at Pacific Content, and collaborating with the excellent teams that make up the company’s client base. She’s been known to conjure up elaborate staff activities that involve lots of secret locations, lots of costume changes, an inordinate amount of performances, and elusive plastic trout in the middle of a desert.
Chris Boyce
Co-Founder | Executive Producer
Biography
Radio programming expert, cross-platform innovator, and trend-setting producer—Chris has earned his reputation as a leader in content creation for more than 20 years. He started early, hosting a community access TV show as a teenager before spending time in the world of pro-wrestling, finally taking refuge in the world of public radio.
During his time running Radio & Audio for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he led the launch of CBC’s new digital music service and music strategy, as well as moving the broadcaster to the forefront of cross-platform content production and distribution. Under Chris’s leadership, CBC Radio significantly grew its digital audience, dominating the Canadian podcast market while continuing to grow broadcast audiences to record levels, reaching more Canadians than at any point in its history.
At Pacific Content Chris works with clients to develop successful podcasts and oversees a number of shows as Executive Producer.
Dan Misener
Head of Audience Development & Strategy
Biography
Dan’s passionate about telling great stories, and discovering how new technologies and formats can help do that. He arrived at Pacific Content after ten years at CBC Radio, where he produced content for Spark, DNTO, and GO!, and local afternoon shows across Canada. As an indie podcaster, he helped create the pioneering video podcast, Jim Dupree: Enthusiast, as well as Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids — a New York Festivals’ award-winner, Buzzfeed chart-topper, and iTunes “Best Of”.
Jonas Woost
Director of Strategy
Biography
Jonas is a digital media and entertainment executive with a passion for innovating in the digital content ecosystem. His work has received a number of awards and in 2019 he was named one of BC’s 40 under 40. Between 2015 and 2019, Jonas was the Executive Producer for Original Content & STORYHIVE at TELUS. He helped one of the biggest Canadian telecommunication companies tell impactful and engaging stories while at the same time supporting Western Canada’s community of filmmakers.
Previously Jonas was with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) where he ran CBC Music, which was one of the most successful digital music services in Canada, attracting 1.2 million visitors every month.Before moving to Canada in 2010, Jonas was the Head of Music at the London-based digital music start-up Last.fm. He was in charge of all negotiations and relationships with music owners when CBS acquired Last.fm for US$280 million in 2007.
Geoff Siskind
Executive Producer
Biography
As a producer, writer and director, Geoff (@geoffsiskind) has helped launch some of Canada’s most popular reality television programs including (aka Storage Wars Northern Treasures on Netflix), Canada’s Worst Driver, Redemption Inc with Kevin O’Leary, Canada’s Worst Handyman and Junk Raiders.
He’s produced radio programming and documentaries for public radio networks across North America, including Search Engine (for which he won the New York Festivals’ International Broadcasting Award), Outfront, and The Phone Book Stories.
An alumni of the Canadian Film Centre’s Interactive Entertainment Program, Geoff directed the interactive documentary Tightrope, which has been presented by many festivals, including SXSW (Austin), IDFA (Amsterdam), and Hot Docs (Toronto).
Read more about Geoff on his website.
Karen Burgess
Executive Producer
Biography
Karen has worked in the media since she first took a summer internship at her local CBC Radio station. Along the way she moved coasts, won a bunch of awards, and launched three national radio shows on everything from country music to economics. She’s run daily current affairs programs, headed up a newsroom, and created content for pretty much every digital, audio, and broadcast platform you can use to tell a story. She comes to Pacific Content with two decades of experience making great shows, training hosts, producers and journalists, and creating teams where people love to work.
Andy Sheppard
Show Runner | Sound Designer
Biography
Andy is obsessed with how sound and music help propel a story and connect with listeners’ emotions. He has been a national radio host and producer on CBC, an international touring musician, a film composer, arts columnist, and sound designer. His original music has appeared on television and in viral videos (with over 35 million views) and is featured in an upcoming motion picture starring Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad. He has a degree in music and arts from McGill University. Andy is super excited to be part of the Pacific Content team where story is king and sound is the castle.
Tara Brockwell
Producer
Biography
What’s your story? Tara’s an incessantly curious person who’s worked in local radio with the CBC in Montreal and Vancouver. She’s especially proud of creating specials that challenge notions of race, language and mental health with the hopes of flexing the fabric that makes and breaks our communities. Before delving into the world of radio, she roamed the globe teaching in Egypt and South Korea with the hope of gaining insights into the meaning of life. She’s still looking and is excited to explore all of what makes us tick by sharing stories with an excellent group of raconteurs at Pacific Content. When not creating podcasts, she’s listening to them while spelunking through the clutter at home… wish her luck.
Christian Prohom
Sound Designer
Biography
First and foremost a musician, Christian spent several years playing in notable West Coast punk bands Red Tide, D.O.A. and the Dayglos before transitioning into a slightly less eardrum-compromising career in film & television. He’s composed and designed sound for all manner of fine folks from broadcasters like the CBC, CTV, Discovery Network, WTN/Slice Network, Knowledge Network, to independent and feature filmmakers. When he’s not bending sound into podcasts for Pacific Content, you’ll find him in the woods with his family foraging for perfectly safe things to eat.
Dominic Girard
Show Runner
Biography
Dominic’s been telling audio stories for about 15 years now. He cut his teeth at CBC Radio, first at The Current, and then helped create and make Day 6. He moved to Banff, Alberta, to build, launch and manage a French and English language radio network at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. It was a job so all-encompassing he even got to pick the paint colours for the studio (mostly greys and an eye-popping yellow, if you’re wondering). An accomplished interviewer, news producer and documentary maker, he most enjoys telling intimate, personal stories of fascinating people, and punctuating stories with carefully layered sound design. When his nose isn’t buried in his work, you’ll find him in a forest, or on a beach, or riding his motorcycle, or building a fire, or perfecting his tomato sauce, or refining his cocktail skills.
Mio Adilman
Show Runner
Biography
Mio will do pretty much anything to get a good story.
Once that meant absorbing countless blows to the head from members of the Pillow Fight League (ouch!). Another time, Mio asked close friends to anonymously write what they really thought of him while testing a personal feedback app (double ouch!!).
Mio has exposed listeners and viewers to these new, sometimes-painful, experiences in a wide variety of public radio and television roles over the past 15 years, both as a producer and on-air contributor/host.
He comes to Pacific Content from Zoomer Media where he chronicled the groundbreaking issues and often-overlooked stories of the aging baby boomer demographic.
Mio can and will regularly eat multiple quarts of blueberries in one sitting.
David Swanson
Producer
Biography
David believes a good story should reveal the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary to help people better understand the world and their place in it.
Before coming to Pacific Content, David worked as an associate producer on a number of CBC Radio programs including The Early Edition, BC Almanac and On The Coast. He also produced and designed the Interesting Vancouver Presents podcast and worked as the program director for Simon Fraser University’s CJSF 90.1 FM. David’s stories have taken him on a climb to the mouth of a smouldering volcano… and through Las Vegas to capture the moment an ex-convict reunited with his estranged stepmom. His work has been heard on the BBC World Service program Outlook and on CBC’s Podcast Playlist and The Doc Project.
Some of David’s favourite things include backcountry hiking, tennis, the smell of Halloween, running for the bus, and dad jokes.
Gaëtan Harris
Sound Designer
Biography
Gaëtan has a passion for great sound. An avid radio listener from an early age, he found his love for storytelling when he received a voice recorder for his birthday at the age of 7. Born and raised in Winnipeg, he cut his teeth in radio as a host on college and commercial rock radio before moving West in search of education. After graduation from the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Gaëtan was hired as as a Creative Producer for nascent Vancouver station Roundhouse Radio, where he established his career as an award-winning Sound Designer.
In his spare time, he is an animation and commercial voiceover artist and play-by-play announcer for the local Junior B hockey team.
Ashley Walters
Show Runner | Sound Designer
Biography
After completing a Masters of Journalism at Ryerson University, Ashley beamed herself aboard the mothership at the CBC. For the past 5 years, she’s produced radio documentaries for CBC’s national programs including The Sunday Edition, Ideas, Living Out Loud, and The Doc Project, covering topics ranging from women’s vigilante groups in India, to labour disputes, and the science of near-death experiences. She’s done sound design for the CBC programs Podcast Playlist and The Sunday Edition, was part of the team that launched the popular podcast Someone Knows Something, and was a technical producer on CBC’s Missing & Murdered: Who Killed Alberta Williams podcast. In 2014, she won a Gabriel Award for artistic achievement in a radio story. Ashley also produces a podcast about Canadian artists for the Art Canada Institute in Toronto.
Brittany Duggan
Producer
Biography
For Brittany, putting together a podcast episode is a bit like choreography — combine compelling ideas and stories with select pacing and sound and you’ve got memorable entertainment with impact. Brittany found her way into journalism following a career as a contemporary dance artist in Toronto. A Master of Journalism at the University of British Columbia introduced her to audio, video, and digital modes of storytelling, and she has since diversified her coverage of arts in Canada to include culture, society, and current events. Brittany has freelanced for the CBC, Maclean’s, Canadian Geographic, and The Georgia Straight, among others. She is the former co-host and co-producer of Arts on Air at UBC’s radio station CiTR and still enjoys being a critic for Canada’s dance magazine, The Dance Current.
Shawn Cole
Sound Designer
Biography
Shawn has been working passionately with sound for over 20 years, seeing it as the perfect way to blend science and art. From mixing legendary anime series (Dragon Ball, Inuyasha, Gundam Seed, Hamtaro), to recording and producing albums (Yukon Blonde, Bend Sinister, Half Moon Run, Hannah Georgas), Shawn is singularly focused on ensuring that the auditory experience engages the listener and propels the story forward. His work has been recognized by the Western Canadian Music Awards, the Calgary Music Awards and through Canadian Certified Gold and Platinum records. As a principle owner of Fader Master Studios in Vancouver, Shawn spent 15 years finding unique ways to create compelling soundscapes for music and storytelling. In his spare time, Shawn enjoys spending time with his family, volunteering at an elementary school and tinkering with robots.
Pedro Mendes
Show Runner
Biography
Pedro Mendes has been an audio producer, host and editor for almost two decades. He spent 13 years at CBC Radio where he worked on arts, sports, music and current affairs programming as well as producing and hosting a number of his own series and documentaries. He has worked as a studio director for Penguin Audio Books with some of Canada’s most prominent authors as well as a past Prime Minister. Pedro is also Canada’s leading voice on classic men’s style. He has published a book on the history of Canada’s oldest tailor and writes for prominent newspapers and magazines around the world. He has also produced a number of documentaries, a TV show and a podcast series about classic style, the history of denim jeans and why dressing sustainably matters.
Jeff Blundell
Show Runner
Biography
Jeff Blundell spent a decade travelling the world as a television producer for Discovery Channel. He chased Wood Buffalo across Siberia for the documentary series “A Risk Worth Taking,” and hung out with all ten of Canada’s astronauts for the documentary, “The Last Shuttle.”
Jeff was part of the team that launched the all-sports channel, Sportsnet, in 1999, and the lifestyle channel, Cottage Life, in 2012.
Before joining Pacific Content, Jeff produced podcasts for some of Australia’s biggest brands, including GE Australia, OZ Forex, and Telstra.
When not podcasting, Jeff can be found sailing wherever the water is blue and the wind is steady.
Pippa Johnstone
Producer
Biography
Pippa is a freelance podcast producer and sometime theatre-maker from Vancouver, now living and working in Toronto. She co-hosts & produces Word Bomb with TVO, an award-winning series about the evolution of words, associate produces CBC’s PlayME, a podcast featuring new Canadian plays, and produced the Globe Content Studio’s AI Meets World for Microsoft. She is passionate about making innovative audio, from radio plays, to live performance, podcasts or audiobooks, and will take any excuse to spend time in a recording studio. She holds an MA in Media Production from Ryerson, and a BFA in Acting from UBC.
Michael Harris
Writer
Biography
Michael is the author of two national bestsellers—Solitude and The End of Absence (for which he received the Governor General’s Literary Award). He writes (often about online life) for Esquire, The Washington Post, Wired, Salon, The Globe & Mail and dozens of other publications. He’s also worked as an editor at Vancouver magazine and Western Living. Michael is a faculty member in the Banff Centre’s Literary Journalism program.
Miriam Johnson
Producer
Biography
Miriam is a writer, producer and musician with a passion for stories and sound. Before joining Pacific Content, she worked in film and television on documentaries for National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, and HBO. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times.
Some of her favourite podcasts include: Ear Hustle, Caliphate, and S-Town.
Miriam performs in a band, trains as a boxer, and loves hiking in the woods with her Swiss Shepherd dog.
Annie Rueter
Producer
Biography
Annie Rueter is a podcast producer and journalist based in Vancouver, B.C. She’s a big fan of talking with strangers, the outdoors, books, art and dessert. Before joining Pacific Content, Annie was a fellow of the Global Reporting Program at the University of British Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Annie spent a year as a GRP fellow reporting on global seafood supply chain issues. The multimedia project won gold in the 2019 Digital Publishing Awards for Best Editorial Package.
Annie is well-versed in simplifying complex stories and information having produced two seasons of Choiceology with Pacific Content, which explores lessons from behavioral science, and a season of if/else, which debates career choices in technology. Annie’s other work can be found in CiTR Radio, CBC News, Canadian Geographic, NBC News and The Globe and Mail, among others.
Elizabeth Hames
Show Runner
Biography
Elizabeth Hames is a showrunner with Pacific Content. She joins the company as an experienced journalist, writer, editor and producer. She is also the host and producer of SLUMTOWN, an investigative podcast from CBC Edmonton. Throughout her career, Elizabeth has established herself as an excellent chaser and writer, and an endless well of story ideas. She is always on the lookout for stories that are surprising, unique and compelling, and she loves to experiment with story treatment.
Melanie Green
Producer
Biography
Melanie Green has always wanted to tell stories. She’s a fervent chase producer and host of Remote Works by Citrix. After being a current affairs associate producer on CBC’s The Early Edition and On the Coast, Melanie moved to Star Vancouver, a digital expansion of Torstar’s Toronto Star, where she reported on culture, public policy and politics. In her previous professional life, Melanie managed a restaurant and live-music space. If she’s not working, you can find her growing, harvesting or cooking food.
Rehmatullah Sheikh
Producer
Biography
Rehmatullah Sheikh is a fan of podcasts. If you’re saying something engaging, he’s probably mixing your voice with background music in his head. (He’s still listening to you!) Rehmatullah graduated from UBC’s School of Journalism and was a recipient of the CBC Vancouver Newsroom scholarship. He spent his most creative days working in current affairs radio as an Associate Producer for the shows On The Coast and The Early Edition. During this time, he was behind the mic doing live hits, reporting traffic and weather and producing audio packages. Rehmatullah was also a fellow at the Global Reporting Centre, and during this time, he was part of an investigation into the impacts of fishmeal factories in West Africa. As a journalism student, he won CBC’s Alexis Mazurin Award for a podcast he produced about the ban of Skype in the United Arab Emirates. Rehmatullah is a third-culture kid — he’s from India but grew up in the Middle East. His travels and experiences fuel his passion for speaking to strangers, exploring their cultures, telling their stories and showing that our world becomes a little more interesting and fun when we care to listen. When not working, you can find him shopping for groceries, biking or trying too hard to be funny on Twitter.
Alison Broverman
Show Runner
Biography
Alison Broverman (@brovermania) is an award-winning audio producer, arts reporter and occasional playwright. On air, she has taste-tested a data drink machine (for CBC’s Spark, the data was delicious), and simultaneously donated blood and conducted an interview (for CBC’s Here and Now; the nurse was not impressed). In print, she has pitted vegetables against each other tournament-style (onion won) and followed an immersive theatre production from Barrie, Ontario to London, England. Prior to joining Pacific Content, she produced a wide variety of radio shows and podcasts for CBC Radio, including How To Do It, Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids, The Fridge Light and Podcast Playlist. Her written work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Quill and Quire, and The Canadian Theatre Review, among many other publications.
By night, Alison can be found running Borrel, the Dutch bar and restaurant she opened with her partner in Toronto in 2017.
Our brand partnerships
