Reuters Breakingviews makes staff changes

Rob Cox, the editor of Reuters Breakingviews, sent out the following staff announcement on Monday:

I’m pleased to announce some exciting organizational changes that will further strengthen Reuters Breakingviews’ coverage of global finance.

• In Hong Kong, we are pleased that Una Galani will assume the new role of Asia corporate finance columnist starting in September. Una, who joined Breakingviews in 2006, has spent the past few years in Dubai covering the economy and financial markets of the Middle East in the immediate aftermath of the Arab uprisings. Her assignments have taken her to Egypt, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Previously she wrote on mergers and acquisitions, mining, and media from London, where she received a commendation in the category of Young Financial Journalist at the Harold Wincott Awards for 2009.

• Also moving to the Breakingviews team in Asia is Ethan Bilby, who joins from the Brussels bureau of Reuters where he has spent the past year covering foreign affairs, trade and investment. He recently delivered a series of exclusives about growing trade tensions between the EU and China. Ethan completed Reuters graduate trainee program and is a fluent Mandarin speaker, which will serve him well as a corporate China columnist, backing up Peter Thal Larsen in Hong Kong and John Foley in Beijing from later this month.

• In London, Swaha Pattanaik begins this month as markets columnist. Swaha has covered financial markets and policy making for almost two decades in Europe. As financial markets editor for EMEA, she has most recently overseen Reuters forex, bonds and stock market teams in the region. Swaha brings a wealth of insight and experience to our markets coverage at a time of significant financial, economic and regulatory change. I am personally delighted to once again be working with Swaha after a near-20 year hiatus.

• Also in London, after a year-long stint as a research assistant, Viktoria Dendrinou is joining our writing team to cover macroeconomics while also continuing to support the production desk. Viktoria has written regularly on macroeconomics and the euro zone crisis. In her new role, she will also support the production desk in London while continuing to write views both on economics and more broadly.

• I am pleased to welcome Kevin Allison stateside, where next month he will become a corporate columnist looking after consumer and industrial companies and commodities from Chicago, a major global center for the commodities industry. Kevin has written about the scramble for natural resources since joining us in London in 2011. Prior to that, Kevin worked at a bank and as a reporter and Lex columnist for the Financial Times in London and San Francisco.

• Finally, Fiona Maharg-Bravo returns to Madrid as a part-time columnist covering Spain after a year out in California. I have had the pleasure of working with Fiona since she joined Breakingviews in London in 2003 after a stint in investment banking and after receiving the Nico Colchester Fellowship at the Financial Times.

By strategically deploying our people in the world’s most important financial capitals, and by cycling talent from news to agenda-setting opinion, these moves position Breakingviews for even greater success in the months and years ahead. Please join me in congratulating these colleagues on their new roles as we continue our work to provide high-value global analytical financial commentary to Reuters customers around the world.

Unrelated to these changes, I want to let you know that Agnes Crane has decided to leave Reuters after four years for a buy-side opportunity. Please join me in thanking Agnes, and watch for an update on our capital markets coverage in the coming weeks.

It’s the first major personnel reorganization at Reuters Breakingviews since Cox took over in December.