WSJ hires new City reporter

David Enrich of The Wall Street Journal sent out the following staff announcement on Tuesday:

We are thrilled to announce that Ben Wright is joining the Wall Street Journal to cover the City of London. Ben’s beat will encompass the U.K. operations of foreign investment banks, from the giants of Wall Street and Europe to the upstarts of Asia and everything in between.

Ben joins us from Financial News, where he’s worked for the past eight years, until recently as editor. His wealth of industry contacts and banking expertise helped build FN into a must-read newspaper and website for London’s investment-banking industry. Along the way, Ben oversaw a redesign of FN’s print and digital editions, launched a successful iPad app and blog (http://thetally.efinancialnews.com/) and opened a Hong Kong bureau. He also previously worked as editor of special reports for the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Ben describes himself as “ever so slightly obsessed by rugby.” He also sports an intra-company sibling rivalry: On Financial News’s recent London-to-Monte-Carlo charity bike ride, Ben claims that he handily beat his younger brother Jonny, who also works for Dow Jones in London.