Goalhanger has appointed three senior executives as the podcast producer continues to build out its management team and content operations. The news comes just a few days after the company secured worldwide rights to use English Premier League archive footage on its popular podcast The Rest Is Football.
Andy Hodgson has joined the company as chief financial officer, Chloe Straw has been appointed director of operations, and Emily Kent Smith (pictured) becomes editorial director. All three appointments take effect immediately and report to co-founders Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.
The hires are intended to support Goalhanger’s next phase of growth across audio, video and written publishing. Hodgson will lead the company’s financial strategy and long-term planning, Straw will oversee operational delivery and organisational scale, and Kent Smith will be responsible for editorial strategy across written formats, including newsletters and long-form content.
Hodgson joins from a series of CFO roles at UK scale-ups and previously spent five years at Uber. Straw joins from industry body AudioUK, where she served as chief executive and worked on sector representation, training initiatives and international partnerships. Kent Smith was most recently associate editor at The Sunday Times, where she worked across the weekly print edition and digital strategy.
Commenting on the appointments, Pastor and Davenport said: “As Goalhanger continues to grow, it’s important that we put the right leadership in place across finance, operations and editorial. Andy, Chloe and Emily each bring deep experience and will play a key role in supporting the company’s next stage of development.”
The appointments follow a strong year for Goalhanger, which reported more than 750 million full-episode streams in 2025 across its podcast network. The company produces a range of shows including The Rest Is History, The Rest Is Politics, Empire and The Rest Is Football. It has also announced a partnership with Netflix to bring The Rest Is Football to the platform during the 2026 World Cup.
In a further expansion of its football output, announced last week, Goalhanger secured worldwide rights to use Premier League footage on The Rest Is Football. The deal covers archive action from the league’s launch in 1992 through to May 2025, making the show the first podcast globally to feature Premier League match footage. The programme is hosted by Gary Lineker alongside Micah Richards and Alan Shearer and is distributed via Spotify video and YouTube.
Pictured – new editorial director Emily Kent Smith
