Conde Nast biz magazine hires first writer

The New York Post reports this morning that the as-yet-unnamed Conde Nast business magazine that is about a year away from launching has hired its first writer.

Keith Kelly writes: “Joanne Lipman, the editor-in-chief of the still-untitled Conde Nast business title that is still a year away from launch, is staffing up. She has just raided Fortune magazine to hire Dan Roth as a new senior writer.

“‘That’s the rumor, and it is true,’ said Roth yesterday. He starts the new gig March 20.

“‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to a start-up magazine that is backed by Conde Nast,’ he said.

“Sources say that Conde Nast outgunned the New York Times, where Roth was in the running to replace Jim Impoco, the paper’s former Sunday business editor who earlier joined Lipman as the new mag’s executive editor.

“Roth, a one-time tech editor, has penned a slew of Fortune cover stories including an April 2004 feature on Donald Trump. More recently, in April last year he penned ‘Nike after Knight’ on the legacy of Phil Knight, and in January he co-wrote ‘Why There Is No Escaping the Blog’ with tech writer David Kirkpatrick.”

Before joining Fortune in 1998, Roth was a reporter for Forbes, where he worked for two years. He started his career with the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh, N.C.

From 1999 to 2003, Roth appeared on TJFR Business News Reporter’s list of the top 30 business journalists under the age of 30. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and lives in New York.