New executive editor named at Fortune

Steven Koepp, who had been deputy managing editor at Time, has been named the new executive editor at Fortune.

Unlike other media outlets, the exec ed position is the No. 2 slot at Fortune, behind ME. Andy Serwer is Fortune’s managing editor.

Koepp replaces Robert Safian, who left earlier this month to become editor in chief of Fast Company magazine. Koepp, who worked at Time for 26 years, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

After graduation he joined the Waukesha Freeman, a daily newspaper in Wisconsin, where he worked as a news reporter and city editor. At the Freeman, he won a statewide wire-service award for investigative reporting.

Koepp joined Time in 1981 as a correspondent in the magazine’s Letters Department, where he answered letters from readers. He became a reporter-researcher in the business section later in the year and was promoted to staff writer in 1983; associate editor in 1986; senior editor in 1988 and assistant managing editor in 1994.

During his tenure in the Business section in the 1980s, he wrote and edited cover stories on Ralph Lauren, the Walt Disney company, the buyout of RJR-Nabisco, the Simple Life, the Church of Scientology and B.C.C.I. As editor of the Nation section and later its top-editor, Koepp helped oversee coverage of the Clinton Administration, the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich, and the 2000 Presidential election.

What’s interesting is that Fortune, Money and Business 2.0 — all Time magazines — have been on a hiring spree at the same time that the parent company just cut more than 250 employees from its magazine operations. Most of the cuts came at publications such as People and Sports Illustrated.

Jennifer Reingold leaves Fast Company to become a senior writer at Fortune. Jerry Useem returns to Fortune as senior editor-at-large. Useem will be writing and editing special projects. Susan Z. Callaway joins Fortune as a columnist, covering the auto industry. And David Whitford joins Fortune from Fortune Small Business as editor-at-large. He will focus on feature writing.

Cybele Weisser becomes editor of the Home and Invest sections for Money. Also, Carolyn Bigda and Amanda Gengler are promoted to writer-reporters at the personal financial glossy. And Marlys Harris returns to the magazine as a senior writer overseeing the Plan and Smart sections. Also, Asa Fitch, a recent graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, joins Money as a staff reporter. Previously he was a reporter at the Litchfield County Times in Connecticut.

Finally, Evelyn Nussenbaum joins Business 2.0 as senior editor. Nussenbaum spent the last five years freelancing for The New York Times, Fortune, and Business 2.0. Before that, she was a business columnist and Sunday business editor for the New York Post. She works on the “What Works� section and handles advertising and media features.