Politico merges tech and cyber teams, hires deputy editor

Politico managing editor Sudeep Reddy sent out the following announcement:

We’re pleased to announce the latest milestone in the evolution of POLITICO’s technology and cybersecurity coverage — our effort to deliver greater depth and breadth in reporting on the powerful digital forces reshaping our world. Our journalists are dominating every Washington angle on tech and cyber policy while bringing new insight to the debates around topics such as online speech, antitrust, election interference and ransomware.

As of today, we’ve rounded out leadership of this team under Technology & Cybersecurity Editor Heidi Vogt and Deputy Editor Konstantin Kakaes.

Many of you know Heidi from engaging with her across the newsroom on countless stories over the past two action-packed years. She arrived as deputy tech and cyber editor in April 2020 – one of our first additions in the early days of the pandemic – and quickly learned to navigate the POLITICO newsroom over Zoom and Slack. After seeing her sharp eye for compelling stories and her skill at driving deeper coverage, we elevated Heidi to the top role on the team last year. She’s an alum of The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press who has worked in bureaus from Afghanistan to Senegal to Kenya — a rich international perspective that she has brought to shaping the global reach of our coverage.

Konstantin joins us today from MIT Technology Review, where he’s been an editor for the past three years conceiving and shaping coverage of a wide range of tech issues for its print magazine and website. He’s also been a writer for the publication on space, physics and policy around science and technology. Konstantin was previously a senior fellow at the think tank New America, where he studied the causes and consequences of technological innovation, wrote a book on failure in scientific discovery and edited another book about drones. He began his journalism career at The Economist, where he was Mexico City bureau chief and a science and technology correspondent based in London. He is an avid, if not particularly speedy, cyclist.

Please join us in congratulating Heidi and Konstantin on their roles.