WSJ hires eight for finance department; five get new beat

Charles Forelle, the financial editor of The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:

Hi all,

It’s always a pleasure to celebrate great stories and great people. You read the great stories, and I want to introduce you to the great people who’ve joined the Finance group or dived into new roles here in the past couple of months. There’s a ton going on. Zany repo markets, zany oil markets, zany IPOs–maybe there’s a theme here. We’re looking for more great people: Right now, we have openings for markets reporters in New York, London and Shanghai, the deputy investing editor in New York, and a Heard writer in New York. Say hi if you’re interested.

-Charles

New beats:
Jean Eaglesham brings her formidable talents to the accounting beat. Jean will cover the major accounting firms and sniff out what companies are doing with their numbers. Jean joined the Journal nine years ago and has reported on financial fraud and enforcement. Before the Journal, Jean worked at the Financial Times for more than 13 years, including as chief political correspondent and U.K. business editor. She’ll continue as a member of the financial enterprise team, reporting to Ken Brown.

Paul Vigna moves a few chairs over from banking to the markets team, where he will continue to cover cryptocurrencies and whatever else sprouts legs and crawls out of the primordial soup of digital assets. He’ll also expand his remit into broader markets and help us cover them creatively for online readers. Paul is the author of two books on crypto and a totally different book on zombies. Paul started at Dow Jones in 1997. He came to the Journal in 2012 and has been doing digital innovation ever since. You’ve heard his voice and seen his face and read his writing on our early iterations of podcasts, videos and blogs. Paul reports to Lauren Pollock.

Corrie Driebusch moves to the deals team to take on the activism beat, where she’ll have a big perch to write about some of the most influential forces and faces in modern finance. Corrie, who came to Dow Jones in 2010, was previously on the Journal’s markets team and covered the U.S. stock market through an epic bull run (she has a Dow 20K byline, not just a Dow 20K hat). Corrie has been the markets team’s IPO and capital-markets expert, and her deep sourcing has helped deliver our marathon of scoops on offering after offering after (non)offering. Corrie reports to Deals Editor Dana Cimilluca.

Telis Demos has moved to Heard on the Street. Never shy about his views, he now gets to put them in the paper. Telis writes about banks and other financial-service companies for Heard. Telis is a financial omnivore who covered Citibank and financial technology and wayward Venmo payments ($15, for “Meatbal shop without gada”) on the banking team, and before that broke news on the IPO beat. He joined the Journal in 2012 from the Financial Times. Telis reports to Heard Editor Spencer Jakab.

Julie Steinberg is now in London, after four years and countless scoops on the finance beat in Hong Kong, where she covered the unraveling of HNA, the surge in Chinese IPOs and the immense compensation of Xiaomi’s CEO. Before Hong Kong, Julie was a banking reporter for the Journal in New York. She’ll stay on finance, and she’s now focusing her reporting on London’s hedge funds and other big investors. Julie reports to Anuj Gangahar.

New faces:
Chitra Somayaji joined the Journal from Bloomberg and is our new Europe Markets Editor in London. Chitty was at Bloomberg for 19 years, as a reporter and editor in the U.S., India, Hong Kong and London. She has a deep portfolio of management experience, having edited across investing, real estate, M&A, health and finance while at Bloomberg. Chitty supervises the London markets team and steers our global markets coverage through the vital early-morning hours on the East Coast. She reports to Alex Frangos.

Anna Isaac is a new markets reporter in London She comes to us from The Telegraph, where she was economics correspondent and wrote widely on global markets, the British pound, the Bank of England (also: the Bank of England’s country club) and, of course, Brexit. Her scoop-filled reporting on Britain’s attempts at forming post-Brexit trade policy made her a must-read. Anna reports to Chitra Somayaji.

Karen Langley is a new markets reporter in New York. Karen just finished an MBA at Columbia, which followed her Knight-Bagehot Fellowship there. Before the Bagehot she covered state politics for a decade, at the Concord Monitor (where she had a front-row seat for the 2012 presidential primary) and most recently at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was Harrisburg bureau chief. This is not her first time at 1211 6th Ave.–Karen was an intern at Barron’s before her MBA. Karen reports to Lauren Pollock.

Caitlin Ostroff is a new markets reporter in London. Caitlin was a Journal intern in 2018, then returned to South Florida to work as a data reporter for the Miami Herald. There, she was part of a reporting team that investigated access-peddling at Mar-a-Lago. Caitlin is a skilled programmer, and she’ll be aiming those skills at the vast collections of data in the world of markets and finance. Caitlin reports to Chitra Somayaji.

Rochelle Toplensky is a new Heard on the Street writer in London, covering European banks and European Union matters. Rochelle previously covered EU policy for Financial Times in Brussels and wrote for the FT’s Lex column in London. Rochelle knows business and finance: She’s an accountant by training, has an MBA, and once started her own company. Rochelle reports to Heard’s Europe editor, Stephen Wilmot.

Sarah Toy comes one flight up the stairs from MarketWatch, where she was a health and media reporter. Before coming to journalism, Sarah was a medical researcher. This is a return to the fifth floor for Sarah, who was a Journal intern in early 2018 in the health and science group. She wrote about flu outbreaks and also about cats who go on adventurous vacations. She’s now covering energy markets. Two days before she started, the giant Saudi oil-processing facility was blown up. Which was quite a welcome to the beat. Sarah reports to Aaron Kuriloff.

Jing Yang is our new Asia finance reporter in Hong Kong, covering M&A, IPOs, and the business of investment banking in the region. Jing, a proven scoop-getter, previously wrote for Bloomberg, the South China Morning Post and Lloyd’s List. At Bloomberg in Shanghai, she covered Chinese conglomerates and broke stories on HNA, Dalian Wanda and others. Jing hails from southwest China’s Guizhou Province, home to the world’s largest radio telescope, and has a master’s degree in journalism from HKU. Jing reports to Serena Ng.

Frances Yoon is a new markets reporter in Hong Kong. She joined in July from IFR and covers Asian debt markets, with a particular focus on China and its growing credit problems. Frances is an NYU graduate who has spent most of her career in Asia, and has written about debt in the region since 2012. Frances is bilingual in English and Korean. She has also extensive broadcast news experience, including stints at Bloomberg, Reuters TV and NBC News. Frances reports to Quentin Webb.