Politico names Woellert its sustainability policy editor

Politico editor in chief Carrie Budoff Brown sent out the following on Tuesday:

Hi all— Since launching six months ago, POLITICO’s Sustainability coverage has already achieved resounding success — through a widely read thought-leadership newsletter, a rapidly growing Pro subscriber base, smart enterprise stories and much more. It’s delivering essential insight to POLITICO’s most influential audiences, and we plan to expand it considerably in the coming year.

We’re pleased to announce a new leader to shape that growth: Lorraine Woellert will serve as our next Sustainability Policy Editor, charting a course for our sustainability content and drawing on even more journalists across the POLITICO newsroom to contribute to this fast-growing beat.

Sustainability explores the tension between short-term and long-term thinking in the quest to ensure the environment, companies, economies and societies survive and thrive into the future. The debates within this space are drawing increasing attention in the worlds of business, policy and politics. You may know about sustainability coverage for its focus on climate issues, but it goes far beyond that to include inequality, education, the future of work and corporate approaches to engaging with employees, customers, shareholders and communities. In short, sustainability touches on some of POLITICO’s core coverage areas and takes us deeper into C-suite audiences that are increasingly relying on our coverage.

In addition to editing and reporting herself, Lorraine will guide our sustainability policy reporter, Catherine Boudreau, who joined the team at its launch this spring. They’ll be on the lookout for story ideas across every beat and for reporters who can contribute through stories or shorter items for our weekly newsletter, The Long Game, which will remain a leading forum for exchanging ideas among thought leaders in this space. This is a true horizontal for the newsroom – drawing on our unmatched journalistic strength in covering energy, agriculture, financial services and numerous other critical areas of policy and politics – to reach a new audience for POLITICO.

In her three decades of journalism, Lorraine has covered business, politics, the economy, financial services, courts, and lobbying — experience that will inform the labyrinthian sustainability beat. In her four years at POLITICO, she’s served as a financial services reporter, a White House reporter and most recently Florida editor, and has been a part of the POLITICO sustainability team to bring perspective from the states and Canada. As Florida editor, Lorraine has guided a hard-charging team in the lead up to the election in this key battleground state while also editing policy stories in the sustainability realm.

She got her start in journalism at George Mason University, where the student paper rejected her. Tears and beers later, she and her friends launched the school’s first underground newspaper. After stints as a metro and statehouse reporter, she covered the D.C. economy, Capitol Hill and trade for The Washington Times, then lobbying and politics at BusinessWeek. She joined Bloomberg in 2007, covering the election, congressional oversight and investigations after the financial crisis, housing and the economic recovery. She’s a co-author of a technology policy book, “Chasing Moore’s Law,” which (she points out) has five stars from both of its reviewers on Amazon.

Lorraine will report to Sudeep. She’ll take the reins post-election from Nirvi Shah, who has been guiding our sustainability coverage throughout the year. Please join us in welcoming Lorraine to her new role, and in congratulating the entire POLITICO team that has made our launch into sustainability coverage an early success.