Back in the mid-2000s Time Out was calling Karen P ‘the Queen of the podcast’. In September 2022 the Radio Academy confirmed her position when they awarded her a Fellowship – the highest honour they can give to an individual within the sector. DJ, audio pioneer, door-opener for new talent and all-round creative instigator Karen Pearson grew up in Southend listening under the bedsheets to John Peel and pirate radio and joined the BBC on work experience, despite having zero contacts in the industry. The list of her BBC-based achievements includes seven years producing Gilles Peterson’s award-winning BBCRadio1 show (and setting up his Worldwide Awards), responding to Jamie Cullum’s insistence that he’d only join BBC Radio 2 if she produced the show – and securing luminaries including Kate Bush, Ramsey Lewis and Clint Eastwood as guests. She’s made a Latin series with Gloria Estefan, set up the BBC Introducing series and her determination to ensure that BBC Radio 2 had a weekly hip hop show eventually came off with Romesh Ranganathan’s For The Love of Hip Hop. Right from the start, she’s been about nurturing talent on and off the mic. Her award-winning company Folded Wing, established in 2006, produces content that makes a difference. Like Karen, the company is Essex based – and like Karen, it looks outward, syndicating shows worldwide and having longstanding relationships with music-first people and specialist platforms in Japan, Brazil and the US. Everything she does is always based on collaboration and the collision of different cultures, creative forms and partnerships. She’s done a lot: Her company was the first podcast company creating branded content in the UK. Over the years she’s combined storytelling and high quality sonics in top-flight audio for the BBC as well as making The Selector for the British Council (broadcast to 40 countries and reaching 4 million listeners) and podcasts and audiobooks for Fabric, Nike, Reebok, Bowers & Wilkins, HarperCollins and a whole heap more. Understandably she’s been in demand as a strategic thinker, spending time as a trustee of the Radio Academy and Sound Women. These days, she’s on the board of Audio UK, the umbrella organisation for all the independent audio production companies across the country. The world of Karen P is a place where new talent is welcome and where fresh voices are amplified. It’s a world where music and culture come first. And whatever she does next, you know it’s going to take the world of audio –and community – somewhere new.