Crain’s Detroit executive editor Root departing after 2.5 years

Kelley Root

Kelley Root, the executive editor of Crain’s Detroit Business, is leaving the publication to explore new opportunities.

Her last day is Sept. 2. She joined the publication in March 2020.

Root was previously at The Detroit News, and was named managing editor in 2019. She held a series of senior editor roles since joining The News in 2004. She had been metro editor, a stint that included supervising the reporting team covering Detroit’s bankruptcy, which won multiple national and local journalism awards.

She previously spent 15 years at the Grand Rapids Press as a reporter and assistant city editor.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.