Reuters names new companies editor, aerospace editor for Americas

Reuters Americas editor Jim Gaines sent out the following staff announcement on Wednesday:

We are very pleased to announce that Ed Tobin has been appointed the new Editor-in-Charge of companies coverage in the Americas. Ed has brought great organization, flair and news judgment to his job as top news editor for the past year, and he brings to his new role a wealth of experience.

He began at Reuters in New York as a news assistant 15 years ago and was quickly promoted to reporter – covering paper and steel at first, then food, tobacco and beverages. He then became health team leader and was quickly promoted to Editor-in-Charge, running teams in charge of everything from health to M&A and raw materials to legal coverage over the next few years. He became deputy editor for the entire companies news team in the Americas, then a global specialist editor on Insider. Ed is known for his exceptional skills at motivating teams and handling new challenges. He got early training in all that as the last of 17 siblings.

Over the next few weeks, Ed will be announcing some additions to the team to ensure that we can become the must-read news service for corporate news — whether strong spot coverage, exclusives, compelling in-depth reporting or smart analysis.

The first new member of Ed’s team will be Alwyn Scott as Editor-In-Charge of Aerospace, Airlines and Defense. Al has asked to take on this new role because of his personal commitments in Seattle. He will be based in New York but spend at least a week a month in Seattle and visiting Chicago and Washington regularly as we seek to increase our focus on coverage of aerospace, Boeing in particular. We want to ensure that our coverage of the aerospace, airlines and defense businesses is second to none, and Al’s appointment is a key step in that direction.

He will be leading the team in the Americas that covers these companies as well as working closely with Tim Hepher, the Paris-based head of our global team. A Pulitzer and Gerard Loeb finalist as well as a consistent winner of prizes awarded by SABEW and the Society of Professional Journalists, Al was managing editor of the Puget Sound Business Journal, Business Projects Reporter at the Seattle Times, and had a number of senior jobs at Dow Jones, including news editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.

We want to thank Al for his work as finance editor in the past eight months. In addition to his team’s coverage of the many big banking stories this year, he can take great pride in the fact that he leaves the team stronger than he found it.

The finance editor’s position will be advertised this week. In the meantime, we have asked Paritosh Bansal to be acting finance editor.

These announcements, and others to come, are intended to ensure we have the best companies coverage in the Americas. We will be seeking to strengthen the finance team in similar ways.