Brad Maglinger Helps Create Campaigns that Spark Conversation

Brad Maglinger serves as Audible’s SVP, Head of Growth and Product Marketing. He joined us in 2021 to help drive customer experience and marketing, leveraging his extensive background with renowned global brands. At Audible, he guides teams tasked with creating campaigns that inform customers about new content and features—in ways that get them as excited as we are.

Collaborating with our product, content, and technology teams, Maglinger’s group has played a pivotal role in bringing attention to Audible’s launches, such as our enhanced Apple Watch experience, incorporating titles with Dolby Atmos 3D sound into our catalog, and a new slate of Audible Originals that commemorate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. The slate includes a highly anticipated new Words + Music title featuring Snoop Dogg, From the Streets to the Suites. He shares some advice on leadership and life, and how growing up with dyslexia led him to a career sharing audio storytelling with the world.

What is something you believe is essential to succeeding as a leader?

Don’t lose your craft or curiosity. Technology and business move at incredible speeds and leaders often find themselves focused on activities outside of the very discipline that made them a great leader. My advice is to find those moments to write a new story or build something simple in Swift or upskill in Figma or Python—wherever your craft originated. Nurturing that curiosity to learn and keeping it alive allows you to dialogue in a more meaningful way with your teams and build true empathy with colleagues and customers.

What have you found most helpful for balancing a leadership role with your personal life?

I prefer to focus on work/life equilibrium, as a true balance is only possible in transient moments. There are periods in which I need to focus more on my family and personal life, and moments where work obligations need more attention. It’s like deposits and withdrawals—a particular couple weeks may require you to provide a disproportionate amount of energy at work to achieve a goal (withdrawal). Any withdrawal from your personal/family life needs adequate deposits to cover that cost. It is important to be wholly present in my personal life to ensure I can dedicate the same amount of attention when my professional life requires it.

What makes Audible a distinct place to work?

Our People Principles are our true differentiator. I have never experienced leadership and teams so dedicated to improving the lives of our customers, colleagues, and community. Our distinction comes to life in the form of unapologetically putting our respect for the human spectrum above all things, both internally and externally.

What drew you to Audible?

Of course, the service and brand initially drew me in, but it’s the access to knowledge and stories that drove me here. Growing up with dyslexia, getting access to information could be a daunting struggle, and inequity. Our global world and educational systems revolve around the ability to ingest literary works. Audio and spoken word opened new worlds for me, and I want to be a part of providing that same access to information for others.

Looking back, what would you say has been the overarching thread in your career journey?

I love to tell stories, and the common thread is certainly creating memorable moments that get folks talking. Whether that’s an evolution in a product or service, or a marketing campaign that introduces a new brand, the common thread in my career has always been to create a conversation. Dialogue has the power to change anything, or everything.

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

Immortality, without question. There’s never enough time to enjoy every moment of life.

Lightning round

• Coffee or tea? Caffeine (so both).
• Morning person or night owl? Definitely a morning person.
• Where are you working from currently? I split my time between the Newark, NJ hub and my home in rural Maryland, about 45 minutes outside Washington, DC.
• How long have you been with Audible? Just over two years.
• Who is your biggest inspiration, career-wise? I worked with Marni Walden, formerly the EVP and President of Global Media at Verizon, and her ability to articulate a vast ocean of complexity in a simple way has been influential in my career.
• Dine in or take out? Dine in.
• Favorite outside of work hobby? Anything with a board; I snowboard, skateboard, wakeboard, and my new obsession is the Onewheel.
• Favorite Audible listen, go. Too many to list, but The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel would definitely be up there, and the Audible Original Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay, an amazingly fresh perspective on this classic story.