OLD Media Moves

Fortune names Bellstrom its executive editor

Kristen Bellstrom

Fortune acting editor in chief Brian O’Keefe sent out the following on Friday:

Dear colleagues,

It gives me tremendous pleasure to announce two very well-deserved promotions at Fortune. As of today, Kristen Bellstrom is promoted from the role of Features Editor to Executive Editor, and Rachel Lobdell is promoted from Digital Editor to Editorial Director.

When Kristen joined Fortune in 2015 to take over as the lead writer of the Broadsheet, the fledgling newsletter had fewer than 15,000 subscribers. Today, under Kristen’s leadership, it has a passionate following of more than 100,000 daily readers. Kristen is instrumental to the success of the Most Powerful Women franchise in a multitude of other ways, as well: This fall marks her fifth year co-leading the list and editorial package with Beth Kowitt and she co-chairs the flagship MPW summit and MPW Next Gen events. But Kristen’s accomplishments extend well beyond MPW. If there’s been a single common thread in Fortune’s award-winning journalism over the past couple of years, it’s how many of the winning pieces were edited by Kristen. Stories that she’s shepherded have won SABEW, New York Press Club, Headliner and Excellence in Financial Journalism awards, just to name a few honors. Kristen is as talented a writer and reporter as she is an editor. Her piece on “How the Leather Jacket Became the New Power Blazer” shaped wardrobe choices on the hit HBO show “Succession” and her award-winning investigative story “Breach of Trust,” co-written with Beth Kowitt, prompted the resignation of then-Tronc CEO Michael Ferro. As Executive Editor, Kristen will continue to expand our digital features desk and take on a bigger role in overseeing in planning and overseeing our core editorial franchises and print magazine issues.

Given how much she’s accomplished in her tenure already, and how integral she has become to virtually everything we do, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Rachel joined Fortune just two years ago this month. She is a manager and organizer extraordinaire, of course, coordinating efforts between the sales, conference, tech, and edit teams, as well as taking the lead on recruiting and onboarding new hires for the edit team. But Rachel has also proven herself to be an exceptional strategic thinker and a font of ideas. Last year, while helping us to navigate through the shock of the pandemic, Rachel conceived and executed the “How to Reopen” package, which was not only a huge success on its own but also provided a blueprint for a series of new, ambitious digital packages this year. She has led our coverage of COVID-19 and the 2020 election (and its aftermath), and has taken ownership of the 40U40 franchise, propelling it to new heights digitally. And she edited Karen Yuan’s SABEW-award-winning story on “The changing future of Chinese-American restaurants.” Rachel has also fostered a new culture of innovation at Fortune. She created our first pop-up newsletter, Outbreak, and recently introduced the idea of edit “theme weeks” to help channel our best journalism into subscription-driving edit packages. As Editorial Director, Rachel will continue to oversee our digital journalism while taking on an even bigger role (if such a thing is possible) in guiding our overall editorial strategy.

Please join me in congratulating Kristen and Rachel on their exciting new roles. Fortune is indeed fortunate to have such a pair of talented, dynamic journalists.

Brian

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

Dynamo hires former Business Insider executive editor Harrington

Former Business Insider executive editor Rebecca Harrington has been hired by Dynamo to be its…

1 hour ago

Bloomberg TV hires Kerubo as desk producer

Bloomberg Television has hired Brenda Kerubo as a desk producer in London. She will be covering Europe's…

2 hours ago

Jittery CNBC staff reassured by new boss

In a meeting at CNBC headquarters Thursday afternoon, incoming boss Mark Lazarus presented a bullish…

2 hours ago

Making business news accessible to a wider audience

Ritika Gupta, the BBC's North American business correspondent, was interviewed by Global Woman magazine about…

2 hours ago

Rest of World hires Lo as China reporter

Rest of World has hired Kinling Lo as a China reporter. Lo was previously a…

3 hours ago

Bloomberg rises to No. 7 biz news website

Bloomberg News saw strong unique visitor growth to its website in October, passing Fox Business…

3 hours ago