Nazanin Rafsanjani

Nazanin Rafsanjani is the former Head of New Show Development at Gimlet Media and Spotify. Nazanin joined Gimlet Media in 2015 as the founder of Gimlet’s in-house advertising and marketing agency, Gimlet Creative. Nazanin grew Gimlet Creative into a multi-million dollar, audio-first creative agency and she launched successful podcasts for clients like Microsoft, eBay, Virgin Atlantic and Gatorade. Nazanin then returned to her roots in journalism to become V.P. of New Show Development for Gimlet Media and Spotify.  As V.P. of new show development, Nazanin greenlit and launched many successful podcasts including Gimlet’s daily business podcast, The Journal, and investigative reporting series like Conviction. Before Gimlet, Nazanin spent a decade as a broadcast journalist. She was a Senior Producer for The Rachel Maddow Show at MSNBC and a producer for New York Public Radio. Her stories have appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, On the Media and This American Life. Nazanin is an Emmy-nominated journalist and she’s been named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Media.

Nazanin holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University and B.A. from U.C. Berkeley. She was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to the United States during the Iran-Iraq War with her family. Her family was granted asylum in the U.S.