AP hires editor for biz news desk in DC

AP deputy business editor Brad Foss sent out the following staff hire announcement on Monday:

It’s a pleasure to announce that Tomoko Hosaka, who previously worked for the AP in Japan, will join Business News as the desk supervisor in the Washington bureau, working with Fred Monyak and the economics team. She starts on May 12.

Tomoko returns to the AP from Plympton Inc., a mobile technology and digital publishing company, where she served as chief operating officer. Before that she oversaw news strategy and partnerships at Ustream, a provider of streaming video. For 3 ½ years beginning in 2008, she was a reporter in our Tokyo bureau, where she covered business and technology and shared in awards for AP’s coverage of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

Earlier in her career, Tomoko was an editor for Dow Jones Newswires in Tokyo and a reporter at The Portland Oregonian. A graduate of Northwestern University with a master’s degree from Tokyo’s Waseda University, Tomoko is fluent in Japanese. She is on the board of UNITY Journalists for Diversity and has served on the board of the Asian American Journalists Association. She has run workshops on digital publishing and social media and worked in video production.

Tomoko is a certified scuba diver. Please join me in welcoming Tomoko back to AP.