About

Mythili Rao is a podcast editor and book critic based in London.

She works on show piloting, development, editing, and production, focusing on non-fiction, news, and narrative content. She also hosts author interviews for “Intelligence Squared.”

Previously, she was the managing editor for Novel, a podcast company based in London. At Novel, she was the executive producer/editor of narrative series including “Filthy Ritual” (Global), “Stolen Hearts” (Wondery), “Countered Terrorism” (Audible), “28 Dates Later” (iHeart), “The Wild Life” (Luminary) and others.

Prior to that, she was the executive producer of the Guardian’s daily news podcast, “Today in Focus,” which she helped launch in the fall of 2018. In 2020, the show won the gold award for Best Current Affairs Podcast at the British Podcast Awards. 

Before moving to London, Mythili was a producer at “The New Yorker Radio Hour,” a weekly radio show and podcast from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker magazine hosted by editor David Remnick. In her time at WNYC, she also contributed reporting to “On the Media” and “Morning Edition”; hosted live events at the Greene Space and other venues; and managed a team of producers on “The Takeaway,” the station’s national news show, broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations across the US.

She has written about books and culture for The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Daily Beast, Words Without Borders, and others. 

Mythili started her career as a news assistant at CNN in New York.  She studied Political & Social Thought and English as a Jefferson Scholar at the University of Virginia, and holds a masters in English Language & Literature from New York University.  She grew up in Poquoson, Virginia.