Acquisitions Team at Podium Expands

Podium, the fastest growing digital publisher in North America, has announced that Annie Stone and Stephanie Beard are joining the company as Directors of Acquisition. Reporting to Kate Runde, Vice President, Acquisitions, these new positions are effective immediately.

“I am very much looking forward to working with Annie and Stephanie,” says Runde. “Both are seasoned publishing veterans with a wealth of knowledge about our industry and bring vast tool kits to our business to help accelerate the continued growth of our market share.”

Annie Stone has been working with authors and publishers on both developing great content and connecting books with audiences for more than a decade. Most recently, she was the Director of Content Acquisitions for YONDER, a serial fiction mobile reading app launched by Wattpad/Webtoon. Before joining YONDER, Annie was the Head of Business Development at BookBub, where her team helped authors and publishers leverage BookBub’s marketing platform to reach new readers. Annie has also worked as an editor of fiction for several major publishing groups including Harlequin and Harper Collins.

Stephanie Beard has spent the past decade working in acquisitions, rights and the adaptation market. Since November 2021, she helmed the rights department at Sourcebooks, where she helped grow the core business as well as launched an in-house film and TV licensing program which included a first look deal with Osprey Productions and Sony Pictures TV. Previously, (2014-21) she was the Executive Editor and Rights Director at Turner Publishing, where she founded Keylight Books which focused on finding stories for print and screen.

“Adding two talented executives to our organization will enable Podium to stretch beyond our core genres and expand our impact across the publishing industry,” said Scott Dickey, CEO. “Both Annie and Stephanie bring additional skill sets to our acquisitions team along with historical relationships that will expand and grow at Podium. We are truly honored to have both join the company at such an opportune time.”