WSJ’s Jakab on making the switch from Wall Street to business journalism

Wall Street Journal staffer Spencer Jakab, who edits the “Heard on the Street” column, spoke with “The World According to Boyar” podcast host Jonathan Boyer about his career and his new book.

Here is an excerpt:

Jakab: I spent almost a decade as, first, a country analyst, and then I became head of equity research actually for the entire region, from Russia to South Africa, eventually. I was good at being an equity analyst, and a team move, I guess 24 people at the peak, in those countries. I traveled all over. It was very interesting.

Then, I just got tired of it because I found the subject matter interesting, but I was just managing people and meeting clients all the time. I decided what I’d really like to do is just to talk to people about it and write about it. I’d become friendly that a kid, same background as me, except he’d become a journalist. We were very friendly. We still are friends. He said, “Listen, you can just get a job. You know things, you know useful things, if you want to be a financial journalist.” I literally I just applied and met someone and got lucky and got my start. It was 19 years ago.

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