Fortune announces hires, promotions

Fortune editor Alan Murray sent out the following announcement on Thursday:

I am very happy to announce a big group of new hires and well-deserved promotions of Fortune staffers.

First, in an exciting move, Leena Rao will be joining Fortune as a Senior Writer, based out of our San Francisco office, leaving her current post as a content partner at Google Ventures to return to the world of journalism. Prior to joining Google Ventures, Leena was the managing editor for TechCrunch, where she spent five years writing about startups, tech, and business. Leena graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was the captain of the women’s varsity tennis team. Leena is well sourced in Silicon Valley, a graceful writer, and comfortable on stage as well as on camera. Leena will begin on March 16.

Matthew Heimer will be joining the team as a Senior Editor. In this new role, Matt will be editing features and will take over the helm of the investing section so ably tended by Brian O’Keefe and Nick Varchaver these many years. Prior to his appointment at Fortune, Matt was a senior editor at MarketWatch, where he edited long-form features and multimedia projects and helped launch and oversee the website’s revamped retirement and personal-finance coverage. Before that, Matt worked as a reporter, senior writer and deputy editor at SmartMoney magazine, where he wrote and edited award-winning features and columns on topics including investing, real estate, health care and small businesses. Matt holds a master’s degree in law and journalism from Yale Law School, where he was a Knight Fellow. And notably, he’s also a former contestant on “Jeopardy!”—so be sure and phrase your welcome messages to him in the form of a question. He starts on March 16 as well.

As many of you may have seen in last week’s Broadsheet, I am also very excited to officially announce that Kristen Bellstrom will be joining Fortune as a Senior Editor, where she will take over writing the daily Broadsheet newsletter as well as managing and editing the Most Powerful Women channel on Fortune.com. Kristen joins Fortune from Money, where she has been a senior editor for two years, editing stories on real estate, spending and travel, as well as running Best Places to Live, the magazine’s most successful franchise. Before that, she spent more than seven years with SmartMoney, where her travel coverage won awards from the Society of American Travel Writers and the North American Travel Journalists Association. Kristen, a graduate of Duke University and the Columbia School of Journalism, is also a native Vermonter and an overly ambitious baker.

Robert Hackett has joined Fortune.com as a Writer covering technology and digital security, after a terrific stint as a temp reporter with the magazine. Previously, Bob worked in various capacities at TED Conferences, Johnson & Johnson, and Nautilus magazine. He studied chemistry and English at Cornell University and earned his Master’s degree from the Columbia School of Journalism.

And Christina Austin has joined the team as a producer for Fortune.com. She hails from Charlotte, NC., and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina (go Heels!) Since moving to New York in August 2013, she’s had stints at Business Insider and The Huffington Post.

In addition to these new members of the Fortune family we have a host of well-deserved promotions to announce.

Adam Lashinsky has been promoted to Assistant Managing Editor and Editorial Director of Brainstorm Tech, titles befitting his growing role overseeing technology coverage for the magazine, conferences and digital.  All Things D once called Adam a “writer with bionic tendencies.”  These days he manages, orchestrates conferences, and writes for the magazine and the web, all with the same bionic tendencies.  Senior Editor Andrew Nusca will become a co-chair of Fortune Brainstorm Tech, joining Senior Writer Michal LevRam and Columnist Dan Primack, who continue as Brainstorm Tech Co-chairs.

Roger Parloff has been named an Editor at Large. Two of the most memorable cover stories of the past year, of course, have been Roger’s, including his breakout reporting on Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and a truly insightful piece on Silicon Valley provocateur Peter Thiel. In the past four years, he’s won three Best in Business awards (SABEW), two New York Press Club Awards, an Excellence in Financial Journalism Award (NYSSCPA) and a Society of the Silurians merit award for public service. Formerly a practicing criminal litigation attorney in Manhattan, Roger has been a full-time journalist since 1988, a Fortune contributor since 2002, and a Fortune staffer since 2004.

After an equally extraordinary year, Beth Kowitt has been elevated to the role of Senior Writer. This past year she wrote three deeply sourced and beautifully crafted features for the magazine, including a December story on McDonald’s that was so devastating that, in all likelihood, it forced a change in that company’s management. She also wrote more than 50 stories for the web, as she masterfully covered the sprawling beat of the business of food. At least a dozen of her stories broke news and got picked up by outside media last year. Beth, who joined Fortune in 2008, is a graduate of Bowdoin College and has an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.

Starting immediately, Anne VanderMey is promoted to Associate Editor, where she will continue to bring her sharp story sense and lively pencil to the Macro section and other pages in the front of the book, which she has been editing for a few months. Anne has worked at Fortune magazine since 2010, covering a variety of topics including Goldman Sachs and mail-order brides, both in print and online. Before that, she spent a year as a reporter for BusinessWeek.com and as a city beat reporter for The Hartford Courant. A proud Michigan native, Anne graduated from the University of Michigan, where she studied political science and Russian history.

We are also pleased to announce that Erika Fry is being promoted to the position of Writer—which seems only befitting for someone who has authored six features for the magazine in the past twelve months, including the remarkable story on Benihana in the current issue. Erika has been an indispensible contributor to the front of the book, writing four Macro opening essays and other section stories. Before joining Fortune in 2012, Erika worked as a writer and associate editor at Columbia Journalism Review and from 2005-2010 as an investigative reporter with the Bangkok Post. A native of Cedar Rapids Iowa, Erika graduated from Dartmouth College and received an M.A. in political journalism from Columbia Journalism School.

As many of you have surely noticed this cycle, Senior Editor Chris Tkaczyk has taken on an expanded role managing our all-important franchise lists for the magazine and website—and you can all see his handiwork in the wealth of smart print and digital offerings surrounding this year’s list of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and the recently closed World’s Most Admired Companies list. In years past, along with many of his colleagues, Chris has helped make the Best Companies package Fortune’s biggest and most read franchise on the web, and this year we know it will be even bigger. In his new role, Chris will shepherd several of our other non-Fortune 500 lists and continue overseeing the tablet and mobile editions of the magazine, as he has for the past four years. And please send another round of applause to Chris for reaching a milestone in what must be one of the more exceptional moonlighting gigs for a Fortune editor: he recently celebrated 10 years working as a supernumerary for the Metropolitan Opera. Yes, that’s him up onstage in Lucia di Lammermoor.

As Fortune continues to evolve, I couldn’t be more excited about the position we are in with regards to our ambitious goals moving forward. Please join me in welcoming Leena, Matt, Kristen, Bob and Christina, and congratulating Adam, Roger, Beth, Anne, Erika, Chris, Adam and Andrew.