Amanda Cupido, Founder of Lead Podcasting
Name: Amanda Cupido
Company: Lead Podcasting
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
Amanda is an award-winning podcast producer, radio executive, university instructor, author and audio storytelling expert. She is the founder of Lead Podcasting, a full-service podcast production company specializing in developing podcasts for thought leaders and organizations.
What is the story behind your mission?
Amanda's career began as a reporter, news anchor and producer with Newstalk 1010 CFRB in Toronto. She was invited to redefine the radio courses within the School of Journalism at both Seneca College and Ryerson University, where she continues to teach. During this time, Amanda discovered the power of podcasting when she noticed a shift in the way people consumed audio information. She observed a change in the number of downloads and “listens” to podcast episodes at her radio station. Podcasts not only gave users the autonomy to listen to episodes whenever they chose, but they also unlocked a brand-new global audience that wasn't constrained by the FM signal. Today, Amanda is one of the most respected audio storytellers in Canada. With her experience in radio, and podcasts, as an entrepreneur and educator, she has become a thought leader, a champion, and a disrupter in the audio space. Her mission, therefore, through Lead Podcasting is to use this untapped medium to connect communities around the world through audio storytelling, help people behind companies build authority as a thought leader and form an engaged community.
What are three pieces of advice you would give to a female founder starting out?
Amanda is passionate about removing the obstacles that many female founders put in their own way when it comes to stepping into the "unknown" audio space. This is especially true considering the number of women entrepreneurs today who are particularly afraid of adopting new technologies within their businesses. So, here are her three pieces of advice.
First, launching a successful, profitable podcast requires knowledge and getting the basics right. From what microphone to use and platform to utilize, to formats to think about, podcast repurposing, and how to land the best guests, podcasting is both an art and a science. There are simply no limits to what you can accomplish if you get the fundamentals right.
Her second piece of advice to up-and-coming female entrepreneurs is to go all in on community involvement—”go out there, get involved, look for opportunities to support your community, elevate their voices and let them be seen and heard, give back and make a difference! At the end of the day, when you do great work for your community, your community will lead you and your business to success.” (In 2022, Amanda Cupido produced season two of her community giveback podcast (and app), Remember This, which is dedicated to empowering people to capture oral histories and lifting the voices of the elderly.)
And finally, her advice to female entrepreneurs who are starting out is to stay authentic and take risks. Don’t be afraid to stand out and shine a light on what makes you different. This way, you will turn all your obstacles (which you will encounter one way or the other) and transform them into opportunities.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
In January 2022, Amanda became the first woman Program Director for Canada’s number-one station for talk radio, AM 640 Toronto. This was a significant milestone not only for Amanda professionally but also a landmark moment in Toronto’s history of women in journalism. In this role, Amanda has led and directed all on-air personalities, producers, and managers of the technical board operations, and continues to do so. Later in November this year, Amanda launched a brand-new radio segment on AM 640, a weekday evening show (7 – 10 p.m.) that truly embodies the intersection of podcasting and radio. Hosted by Dani Stover, the show deep dives into the major news of the day, and to date, there’s no other show that’s more reflective of the city where it is located—there’s simply nothing like it in the market! Moreover, in her role as the Program Director of Talk and Talent at 640 Toronto, Amanda is committed to “changing the face of talk radio” and making the station more representative of the city that it’s located. In 2022, she recruited and hired Rubina Ahmed-Haq to host a new financial show called, For What It’s Worth. She’s also hired Maggie John to host, Toronto This Weekend, a new weekend morning show. Another notable achievement is when Amanda met with provincial MPs on behalf of small businesses in Ontario (who are typically underrepresented in conversations about business and economic development) for a media circuit. This was following her being chosen as a delegate to represent Canada at the G20 Young Entrepreneurs' Alliance Summit in Milan in October 2021 to promote and advance youth entrepreneurship in G20 economies. Lead Podcasting also offers pro bono podcast production to two non-profits each year. This year the agency supported and created a podcast for Four the Female, a non-profit with the mission to advocate fo(u)r women of today and tomorrow, strive fo(u)r gender equality, and champion greater representation fo(u)r women in all aspects of the world.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
As the founder of Lead Podcasting, Amanda is driven and passionate about empowering the next generation of media professionals to hone their audio storytelling skills. But more importantly, Amanda seeks to transform the world of audio in today’s increasingly interactive world and use it to build an engaged community. She firmly believes that audio storytelling is the backbone of humanity and continues to apply her expertise in the space to bring fresh perspectives that will help people forge deeper, more meaningful connections both within and outside their communities. And so, for Amanda, being a FoundHer means recognizing the opportunity and pushing the boundaries of this untapped medium and beyond, to bring about positive transformative change.
