Wallbank named breaking news ME for South/Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand

Bloomberg News senior executive editor Katherine Cho sent out the following:

Please join me in congratulating Derek Wallbank, who becomes our new Breaking News ME for South/Southeast Asia and ANZ.

Derek joined Bloomberg in 2011 as a U.S. Congress reporter, but most of you in this group will have become familiar with him during his four years as the TL of our Washington team (called “First Word” at the time). During this time he helmed our headline coverage of high-profile events such as the U.S. presidential and midterm elections and steered the team through the turbulence of Trump. After moving to Singapore in 2019 as a Senior Editor, he’s been embodying total football — you could find him on headlines, fills, BNs, TLIVs and even Pursuits, or talking about U.S. politics on TV. He has also served as the Asia lead for our award-winning Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker, and has gotten deeply involved in D&I issues to address the particular needs of working families in the region. Derek is comfortable working across teams and departments, isn’t afraid to try out new things, is passionate about mentoring, and shows fantastic dedication to the job. I’m not sure when or if he sleeps.

Together with Baizhen Chua, our ME for Northeast Asia, Derek will work to make our coverage of the first 15 minutes even faster and even better. Derek will also be aided in his new role by Clarissa Batino, our Southeast Asia TL, who will be his deputy across the region.