Rao, deputy biz editor for NY Times in Europe, leaving for The Atlantic

Prashant Rao, deputy business editor for Europe for The New York Times, is leaving the paper to become global editor of The Atlantic.

He will remain based in London.

As global editor for The Atlantic, Rao will lead the site’s coverage across a wide range of beats related to U.S. foreign policy, democracy, and global conflict, and oversee its team of reporters based in Washington, London, and Paris.

Rao will join The Atlantic in October and succeeds current global editor Kathy Gilsinan, who is moving to cover the counter-terrorism beat as a staff writer.

At the Times, Rao has edited and written about business, economics, finance, and a variety of other topics like experiments in British policing and technology.

Before joining the Times in 2016, Rao spent more than a decade on the wires, including nine years at Agence France-Presse. He was based in Baghdad from 2009 to 2014, the last two years as AFP’s Baghdad bureau chief. During his time there, he covered several elections, a tumultuous security situation, and, in his final weeks, the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State.