Changes made to WSJ’s digital management

Alisa Bowen, general manager of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, the company’s consumer digital business group, made the following staff announcements on Friday afternoon:

It is with tremendous pride that I would like to confirm what many of you already know – we have an incredible team of talented people, and when new opportunities open up it is fantastic that we can fill those roles with our own people.

Beth Buehler is appointed VP, Head of Business Development immediately, reporting to me. Beth has been with Dow Jones for several years, but most of you probably don’t know she’s also a reformed Investment Banker and a systems developer. We know her best from her recent success rebuilding MarketWatch’s audience growth story. But before she joined our team, she also played a critical role on several key projects — from the launch of WSJ weekend, to the acquisition of Smart Money, to the divestiture of the OFS business. Her strong relationships across Dow Jones and externally, along with her strategy and M&A experience will be a terrific asset as she helps lead the biz dev team to continued success.

Liesel Kipp is appointed General Manager, Marketwatch and SmartMoney.com, reporting to me. Liesel joined us a month ago from Thomson Reuters and has already proven herself a valuable part of Daniel’s team. At Reuters, Liesel was the key driver behind the relaunch of Reuters.com, including helping to redefine the product, sales models and editorial programming of TR’s global consumer publishing business. She has a true passion for news and personal finance and has an affinity with Minneapolis, having lived there for a short while during her time at TR — ask her about how much she liked the snow.

A huge thank you to Gail Griffin for her role leading SmartMoney.com for the past year and half. So much heavy lifting has been done by Gail, through the integration and the relaunch of SmartMoney.com. It’s been a success on many levels and there is yet more potential to realise, but we owe the foundation we have today to Gail’s hard work and commitment. Her focus will return full time to Barrons.com – one of most profitable brands (and fastest growing) in the portfolio.

Rahul Chopra is appointed Director, Video, reporting to me. Rahul has done an outstanding job growing our video efforts. His focus has now moved well beyond straight distribution and partnership deals, now touching product, editorial, ad sales, marketing – and of course, financial accountability. So it feels like the right time to elevate his role and our collective focus on video.

I think we can all agree our video efforts represent an incredibly exciting potential frontier for WSJDN and I’m grateful for the support of the wider group on this, particularly Justin Webster. Justin and Rahul make a great team and I look forward to seeing them continue to build on this success.

In addition, we will sadly be saying farewell to Doug Lauretano, who is leaving us to join a new start up.

We are looking for new talent to join us in Business Development and Product, to backfill Doug and Liesel’s roles, so please tap your networks and let us know of any great people you know looking to take their next step.