Audible names Carrigan CEO, Katz to become executive chairman

Analytics executive veteran Bob Carrigan has been tapped by Audible Inc. to fill its chief executive role, effective Jan. 2. He will report to founder Don Katz, who will become executive chairman.

Carrigan joins Audible from his post as executive chairman at global analytics provider Genscape until its recent sale to Jersey City-based Verisk Analytics. Prior to that, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Dun & Bradstreet, where he led the 177-year-old firm to profitable growth. He also served as CEO of print-publisher-turned-media-company IDG, based in Boston.

“Bob Carrigan is among the most accomplished, creative, intellectually adept, and inspirational CEOs I have watched succeed over my 20 years of studying and chronicling businesses and my 24 years leading Audible,” said Katz in a statement. “His transformational stewardship as CEO of the pioneering global information and subscription services juggernaut, IDG, and his visionary leadership as CEO of the venerable international data and analytics institution that is Dun & Bradstreet testify to his rare ability to field big ideas and turn them into customer-centric action.

“Both companies became far more connected to their customers, to their founding entrepreneurial roots, and both became more meaningful places to work,” he said.

The two first met two decades ago when Carrigan was a senior executive at AOL.

Carrigan will report to Katz, and the two will work together closely on overarching strategies. Carrigan will take over responsibility for Audible’s global business operations, and Katz will focus on Audible’s global content strategy as well as the company’s extensive social and public policy objectives in Newark and elsewhere.

Katz, who won numerous awards over a two-decade career in journalism, is also a founding partner at social impact investment fund Newark Venture Partners, which seeks to connect Newark, where Audible is headquartered, to the early-stage tech start-up economy.

“Audible’s evolution from start-up to global powerhouse is a remarkable business and cultural phenomenon,” Carrigan said in a statement. “I could not be more honored and excited to join Don and the talented people who have worked so hard to serve millions of customers and so many of our most gifted professional creators.”