NY Times biz desk hires Picker from Bloomberg

New York Times business editor Dean Murphy sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:

Leslie Picker, who covers initial public offerings for Bloomberg News, will be joining BizDay as our deals reporter, one of DealBook’s most dynamic and competitive beats.

Leslie has been a force of nature at Bloomberg, breaking some 100 stories over the past two years, including many involving big name companies like Alibaba and Etsy. In addition, she is familiar to viewers of Bloomberg Television, where she has appeared as a reporter and a substitute anchor.

“It will be fun — and a relief — to have her on our side,” says David Gelles, our outgoing deals reporter. “She has a knack for writing clearly about complex financial topics, she can find a good Wall Street yarn and make it interesting to a general audience, and she’s got tremendous range — comfortable writing spot news and profiles on the same day.”

Leslie started at Bloomberg in 2011 as a television producer, and had previously worked at the Fox Business Network. Born and raised in Kansas, her first job was as a singer and dancer at Worlds of Fun theme park in Kansas City. Her specialty was the 1950s rock ‘n’ roll revue.

“Yes, there’s a video recording,” she says, “but thankfully, it hasn’t made its way to the Internet.”

Leslie has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois, a master’s in journalism from Columbia and an MBA from the Stern School at NYU.

And should you wonder how one prepares to take on the heaviest barrage of deal making since the financial crisis, consider this time management feat: Leslie earned her MBA while working full time on the IPO beat.

She starts Sept. 21.