Audacy welcomes Palak Forbes as Senior Vice President, Digital Business Operations

Audacy announced the appointment of Palak Forbes as Senior Vice President, Digital Business Operations. Reporting to Audacy’s Chief Digital Officer, J.D. Crowley, and partnering with the leaders of Audacy’s award-winning podcast studios and sales teams, Forbes will provide commercial and operational leadership for the company’s podcast business, while working across Audacy’s entire digital portfolio and with key strategic partners to enable continued strong growth in Audacy’s digital and podcast businesses.

“As we make consistent strides to evolve and enhance our digital and podcast businesses, Palak is a perfect choice to lead our day-to-day efforts to provide a world-class experience for our customers, creators and consumers,” said J.D. Crowley, Chief Digital Officer, Audacy. “Her deep experience launching and scaling innovative new businesses, and expertise managing strategic relationships with companies across the media and technology sectors will enable us to continue delivering robust growth.”

“Digital audio is in a really exciting phase where we have evolving audio formats and listening experiences as well as new ways of life emerging from the pandemic,” said Forbes. “Audacy has brought together a portfolio of innovative brands to meet the needs of the modern listener, content creators, and advertisers alike. I’m so excited to operationalize our strategy across the digital portfolio. It’s an honor to join the leading creator of original and premium audio during this time of growth and transformation.”

Palak Forbes brings extensive experience driving digital innovation for global media brands to Audacy. She was most recently Head of Business Development & Operations at The New York Times, where she oversaw the development the company’s audio business and spearheaded their foray into virtual reality with the NYT VR app which won the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. Forbes also led strategic and commercial partnership teams to broaden and deepen reader experiences from Apple News to the digitization of millions of historic photos with Google Cloud. With her leadership, the sales team drove multi-million dollar deals and beat goals. Previously, Forbes was The New York Times’ VP Corporate Strategy & Development leading new ventures, off-platform relationships, and M&A; and programming the Board of Directors’ special committee on Technology & Innovation. Prior to that, Forbes was Vice President of Strategy at Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational media company, where she advanced the company’s EdTech initiatives and led international expansion in India. She has also held digital advertising strategy and subscriber marketing roles at Viacom and HBO, respectively.

Forbes earned her MBA in Marketing from Columbia Business School and her Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Information Systems from New York University’s Stern School of Business.