Dow Jones CFO leaving after 15 months

Liz O’Melia, the chief financial officer of Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron’s, is leaving after 15 months, reports Daniel Thomas and Anna Nicolaou of The Financial Times.

Thomas and Nicolaou report, “Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal, is searching for a new CFO, and O’Melia is staying on during the transition, said one of the people.

“O’Melia’s exit comes as parent company News Corp is under pressure from activist investor Starboard to break up the company.

“A News Corp spokesperson on Tuesday said: ‘We have always maintained an active and engaged dialogue with our investors and are committed to driving shareholder value. We remain focused on executing our strategic plan, which has helped us set records in profitability over the past three years.'”

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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.