Defense One names global business editor

Kevin Baron, the executive editor of Defense One, sent out the following announcement to the staff on Wednesday:

Dear newsroom,

We’ve always had a robust growth plan for Defense One, and as we approach just our 3^rd anniversary it’s my great pleasure to announce a key component of that effort. Marcus Weisgerber has been promoted to Global Business Editor, where he will help develop and lead Defense One’s expanding coverage of the defense industry.

In his expanded role, Marcus will lead the editorial direction of what, when, and how Defense One covers global industry, driving creative ideas into new stories, series, events, and products focused on the ever changing and expanding international defense marketplace.

With Marcus, Defense One quickly has established its own brand of broad and in-depth coverage of the defense business, its leaders, trends, and challenges. Through his reporting, he has taken our mission to heart by linking industry and Defense Department news for national security professionals to the rapidly paced real world events in which they play a key role. In other words, Marcus connects the business page with the front page.

Nobody knows industry like Marcus, and few have earned his respected reputation and credibility. You can’t walk across an expo floor or down a Pentagon acquisition hallway with him without hearing officials and leaders calling, “Marcus!”  For good reason. He’s one of the smartest, most personable, trustworthy, and loyal coworkers I’ve known. That’s why we are setting Marcus loose to cover the biggest, smallest, most important and intriguing defense industry stories, trends, and events around the world.

Just this morning, he reports from Space Symposium in Colorado that the next Air Force chief likely will be a 4-star space-war commander, not a fighter pilot for the first time in 70 years, and what that says about today’s wars and tomorrow’s threats. Previously, Marcus broke news that the U.S. wants to build a missile shield against Russian nuclear-tipped cruise missiles; that the Air Force scrapped it’s plan to scrap the A-10s; and he ended up in the Abu Dhabi hotel suite of an accused war criminal who happens to be the defense minister of Sudan. (Ok, his editor practically pushed him through the door.)

From the battlefield to the boardroom, the defense industry is a giant. But it’s no monolith. As the U.S. settles into this new era of global terrorism, tectonic shifts are happening in geopolitics, markets, and the militaries that defend them. How businesses, governments, and commands navigate and survive the turmoil is a critical a story for our audience and for our national security, and Defense One will be there.

Marcus’ promotion comes at a time of growth for Defense One. In less than two years, Defense One outperformed its immediate competitors as the most read publication in the defense community. So far this year, we’ve set new traffic records with over 1.6 million page views in February, our highest performing month to date.

I hope you’ll send Marcus a well-earned congratulations and look forward as much as I do to what’s to come.