WSJ finance and markets team names new editors

Wall Street Journal financial editor Francesco Guerrera sent out the following staff announcment on Friday afternoon:

We have begun building a unified Finance and Markets team in the U.S. and around the world to improve and broaden the accurate, speedy and sophisticated news that is the trademark of Dow Jones. Our aim is to create an integrated team of editors and reporters capable of providing all our readers with the scoops, analysis and enterprise journalism they expect on all our real-time and print platforms.

As part of our revamped team, we’re pleased to announce senior appointments that mark an important step in making our finance and markets coverage deeper, broader, faster and infused with the enterprising, high-impact journalism for which our organization is renowned.

—Rick Brooks, a veteran editor known for his deep knowledge of markets and commitment to deep stories is named Senior Deputy Editor for the Finance and Markets group in charge of enterprise. Rick, whom a senior editor once called “the rock of Money & Investing,” will continue to deputize for Francesco on all matters and be in charge while Francesco is away, while taking on particular responsibility for enterprise stories and the daily Money & Investing section.

—Emma Moody, who has improved our markets coverage tremendously in the last four years will become Senior Deputy Editor for the Finance and Markets group in charge of real time. In this new role, Emma will mastermind our real-time offerings on both the wires and the website, building on our existing strengths while ensuring that we devote resources and journalistic expertise to continue to improve our work.

—Colin Barr, who has been running the Journal’s banking team, is named Markets Editor for the new group. In his new role leading our largest team, Colin will ensure that the group’s two dozen reporters are deployed to best cover market news across the full spectrum of asset classes, from stocks to foreign exchange and commodities. Colin’s role will be a crucial one as the integration proceeds because a large portion of our real-time audience is interested in markets-related news and expects the Journal to be the premier provider of this information.

—Anna Raff will be Colin’s deputy. Her deep markets knowledge and substantial talents as an editor for both real-time and print will be extremely valuable as we reshape our markets offering with greater emphasis on impactful news that can move markets and be of use to readers and subscribers.

—Brian Baskin is named FX and Commodities Editor. As the head of the combined FX and Commodities teams, Brian will oversee two of our most important areas of markets coverage. Both foreign exchange and commodities will be key to our integration efforts as demand for information on those two subjects is huge both for real-time and print.

—Tom Lauricella is named Stocks Editor. Tom is one of our most senior writers, and in this player-coach role he will focus on organizing our stocks coverage, develop and mentor reporters in his team, and continue to report big stories affecting investors.

—Liz Rappaport is named Credit Markets Editor. Liz will be charged with running a half-dozen reporters covering all aspects of credit markets trading, another area where real-time performance will be crucial to our success. She, too, will take on a player-coach role.

Brian, Elizabeth and Tom will all report to Colin.

—Dana Cimilluca, one of the brightest stars in the M&A firmament with a proven ability to break stories, will return to New York from London to become deputy M&A editor reporting to Jamie Heller, our M&A editor. He and Jamie will spearhead our M&A coverage, a premier franchise for The Journal both in real time and in print.

—Justin Baer, who has been running The Journal’s investing group, will become a Wall Street reporter. Justin is one of the most experienced financial reporters around, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the financial industry and an impressive Rolodex. In his new role, he will lead our Wall Street coverage with a special focus on Goldman Sachs.

The integration effort in the unified Finance and Markets team is only a few weeks old, but we are already seeing glimpses of what our new organization will be able to produce, both for real time and print.

We will soon announce further appointments. Please join us in congratulating our new hires and wishing them well in their future roles.