NY Times ad reporter Maheshwari moves to retail

Sapna Maheshwari, who has been covering advertising for the New York Times business news desk, is moving to the retail beat.

Maheshwari wrote Friday on Twitter that she will focus on brands — online, malls, apparel chains — and how they’re navigating Amazon, as well as the new ways consumers shop.

She joined the business news desk in August 2016 from BuzzFeed, where she covered retail and e-commerce. Previously, she was a reporter for Bloomberg News covering corporate credit, stocks, insurance companies and retail.

At BuzzFeed, her investigation of JustFab, a discount clothing startup, won a Best in Business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Her piece on Chinese companies using Facebook to sell knockoff clothing – often so poorly made as to be unwearable – was the most-read investigative feature ever on BuzzFeed with 3.6 million views.

And she and a BuzzFeed colleague won a Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York for their reporting on the rampant use of on-call shifts at Victoria’s Secret and elsewhere.

Maheshwari is a graduate of the UNC-Chapel Hill business journalism program.