Bloomberg names new Africa executive editor, makes other top moves

Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait sent out the following announcement to the staff:

We are going to make some moves at the top of Editorial & Research.

The first is a simple but very important swap in London that will take place at the end of this month. Heather Harris, who has managed EMEA superbly for the past five years and previously helped shape our coverage on Germany, the European economy and companies for two decades from Frankfurt, Berlin and London, will move across to direct our content in the region and run the newly enlarged news desk, which includes the hub; meanwhile David Merritt, who oversaw Asia for four years before returning to London a little more than a year ago, will now become the senior executive editor for EMEA. David is inheriting a Rolls-Royce of journalism that has become a model of collaboration and innovation.

Several years ago, I talked about the need for us to build in Asia. I now feel increasingly the same way about Africa. Its economy may not be as big as Asia, and we sell only a fraction as many terminals there, but Africa is an exciting continent and I think it is going to generate a growing proportion of the economic and political news we cover.

We start from a very good place. Over the course of 20 years, Antony Sguazzin has built up Bloomberg News into a leading force in Africa. He has had help from many other managers, including most recently Riad Hamade, but it is hard to think of any other region where we owe so much to one person. After two decades, Antony is going to move to a senior writing and editing role, becoming our first “total footballer” in Africa. I am pleased that we have persuaded John McCorry to move to Johannesburg to take over as our executive editor in charge of Africa from April. The New York newsroom has echoed to the dulcet tones of the McCorry baritone since 1992 (even in the years when he was based in Princeton). John’s role will be to integrate Africa even more completely into our global newsroom and over the course of a couple of years to find a successor in the region. He will report to David Merritt.

John will be succeeded as our Americas Senior Executive Editor by Jackie Simmons, who will move to New York after 20 years in Europe. As a reporter in Paris, she covered consumer companies, investment banking, finance and M&A; she then ran the European M&A team and European company news. Since 2015, she has overseen Global Business from London. One constant in all her jobs: she gets scoops. Jackie’s successor will be Brian Bremner, who will leave Tokyo (where he went to work for us first in 1993) and move to London. We will soon announce a successor to Brian as the head of the Asian Hub and the indefatigable local champion of Businessweek.

I hope these moves will show other managers the virtue of change: when people as senior and talented as Heather, David, Jackie, Antony, John and Brian can move jobs and take on new challenges, so perhaps can you.

John