John McElroy

President & Founder

John began abridging books for audio in the early 1990s and started his first production company in 1994. As a producer, he won a Grammy Award with Charles Kuralt for Winnie-the-Pooh in 1997 and won two more Grammies with Jon Stewart and the Daily Show for America and Earth in 2004 and 2010. In 2002 he was awarded the Audiobook Hero Award for his work with the Haven Foundation and its fundraising on behalf of Frank Muller, the veteran narrator critically injured in a motorcycle accident.

John is also the force behind eljininc.com, a payment application for union audiobook narrators, and erggo.us, a profile site for audiobook performers best-known for its APA speed-dating events. He sits on the board of the Haven Foundation with this mission: to offer interim financial assistance to freelance professionals in the arts who face crises.

Mikhail Shirokov

Head Engineer

Mikhail began his career in audiobooks as a staff engineer at Talking Book Productions in NYC, a launchpad for many leading pros in the industry. After years as a much sought-after freelancer, he and John joined forces to create an organization that works for the largest and most influential audiobook publishers in North America.

With a BA in Music Technology from NYU, Mikhail is fluent in Russian and German. He’s passionate about his wife and two children, craft beer, and playing ambient music on the ukulele.

Laura Jennings

Communications Manager

Laura Jennings has worn a lot of hats in her career. She has advanced degrees in geophysics and creative writing and spent years as a project manager for a large corporation. That experience has been pivotal to her work at Eljin, where she keeps the team moving on schedule and in-line with the clients’ needs. Laura is also an award-winning narrator who has performed for many of the biggest publishers and producers in the business. One day she may finish the half-written novels that sit in boxes under her bed. In the meantime, you’ll find her on the roads and trails, bike-riding and hiking.

Josh DeSieno

Production Associate / Customer Support

With a background in philosophy and computer science from Tufts, Josh comes to Eljin from software development. He is the company’s utility player, working on the production side as an in-studio and remote director and on the talent-payment side as head of support.  Josh also deals directly with our software development team as a tester and copy editor. He has taught skiing and snowboarding and loves a good double-diamond run.

Cyril Maliarenko

Developer / IT Specialist

Cyril is a software developer with a background in marketing. His interests and experience are broad; he’s worked on everything from e-commerce and bookkeeping applications to corporate web sites and custom solutions for business. John and Cyril began working together on Eljin’s payment application in the early 2010s, and Cyril has been at the center of development and IT solutions at Eljin ever since. He’s the lead developer behind erggo.us and continues to support the production team with integrations and automations that make life easier for the team and Eljin’s clients. He’s also played a large role in the development of Eljin’s latest application at eljininc.com. A native of Odessa, Ukraine, he’s a huge lover of books—and of course, audiobooks.