Fortune’s Kowitt joining Bloomberg Opinion

Tim O’Brien, senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, sent out the following to the staff:

Hello Folks —

Bob Burgess and I are pleased to let you know that Beth Kowitt will be joining Opinion in New York as a senior columnist covering Corporate America. Beth is a senior editor at Fortune, where she has worked since 2008. Beth is a superb writer, an original thinker and has boatloads of experience.

A piece Beth wrote earlier this year: “The Life and Death of Kent Taylor,” about the founder and CEO of Texas Roadhouse, who died by suicide in 2021 after enduring terrible post-COVID symptoms, is one of my favorites. Another one of her features, “McFamily Feud: Scandal, lawsuits, and cultural upheaval at McDonald’s,” recently received an honorable mention for cultural criticism from the National Press Club. Then there’s “America’s Black Brain Drain,” which won the New York Press Club Award last year for business writing. “Fertility Inc.: Inside the Business of Babymaking,” is another gem.

On the accountability side of the ledger, a story Beth co-wrote in 2018, “Former Tronc Chairman and Investor Michael Ferro Accused of Inappropriate Advances by Two Women,” won a SABEW. Ferro retired just before the story was published. Her 2017 piece, “Silicon Valley and the Search for Meatless Meat,” was included in the Best American Food Writing anthology.

Beth, a graduate of Bowdoin College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has also been a linchpin of Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women” conference franchise. Since 2019, she’s co-chaired the annual gathering of those the magazine deems to be the most powerful women in business. She helps program and moderate the event, and has also co-chaired Fortune’s MPW Next Gen conference (for preeminent rising women in business) since 2015. She’s played a key role pulling together Fortune’s annual “Most Powerful Women in Business” list for many years, too.

Because she doesn’t get tired, I guess, Beth is also involved with Fortune’s Global Sustainability Forum and co-chairs the Fortune-U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership (which matches two dozen global female business leaders with mentors from the Fortune MPW community).

Beth will join us on Oct. 31. Please welcome her to Opinion when she arrives.

Thanks,

Tim