O’Kelley of Bloomberg News named academic affairs dean at Columbia

Winnie O’Kelley, who has overseen prize-winning investigative reporting in business and economics and who serves as an executive editor of Bloomberg News, will become the next Dean of Academic Affairs at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

She will start on Jan. 1.

O’Kelley joined the full-time faculty two years ago, running the business and economic track of the M.A. program.

At Bloomberg, she created and managed a global financial investigations reporting team focused on such topics as tax evasion, money laundering and cybersecurity. Last year, her team won the George Polk Award for its coverage of the tax breaks known as opportunity zones. She served in various capacities at Bloomberg over the years, at one point overseeing government coverage in Washington and legal coverage around the world.

Before Bloomberg, O’Kelley worked for 20 years at The New York Times, where she held several leadership roles including Deputy Business Editor. Specializing in financial journalism, she guided coverage there of the reopening of the markets after 9/11, the corporate accounting scandals including Enron’s collapse and the 2008 financial crisis.

O’Kelley edited a 2012 Pulitzer-Prize winning series on tax avoidance by David Kocieniewski. That same year, she received the Gerald Loeb award for excellence in business and financial editing, the Minard Editor Award.

O’Kelley succeeds Sheila Coronel, a longtime faculty member and head of the school’s Stabile Investigative Program who served as Academic Affairs Dean for six and a half years. Coronel extended her term last spring when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the University’s school year.