WSJ names new assistant managing editors

Wall Street Journal managing editor Karen Pensiero sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:

Colleagues,

There are four main pillars in the Managing Editor’s Office — Operations, Training, Talent and Finance — and each has an important responsibility in ensuring that our newsroom has what it needs to produce and publish the top-notch journalism that our readers expect from us. It’s a great pleasure to introduce you to two new leaders and to update you on a few other changes.

Operations: Kate Ortega has joined the Managing Editor’s Office as Assistant Managing Editor, Operations. In this role, Kate will retain oversight of the coming newsroom rebuild, while also picking up broader responsibility for our current space in New York, including all moves and general improvements. She will also work closely with IT to manage our individual computer needs, coordinate with hiring managers and our HR colleagues about onboarding and the relocations of our journalists around the globe, take on special projects, and she will liaise with Ann Podd on emergency contingency planning and global security issues for our journalists. Kate’s terrific work and crazy-good organizational skills, most recently put to use as the project manager for WSJ2020, are well known and respected across the newsroom, and she’s already deeply immersed and making important contributions in her new role. It makes me especially happy that she also started her career at the Journal as a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern. A proud native of Columbus, Ohio, Kate is a graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Training: Brent Jones will join the Journal on Feb. 5 as Assistant Managing Editor, Training and Outreach. Brent is joining us from Gannett/USAToday Network and has a distinguished career of service and support of journalism. At the Journal, Brent will build on our current training offerings and focus on the creation and implementation of a broad, long-term strategy for all newsroom training initiatives, our participation in journalism conferences and fellowships, and the curriculum and oversight of our internship program after interns have been selected. Brent will also work to ensure that our training and outreach initiatives support our focus of being a welcoming, inclusive and diverse newsroom. Brent is currently the head of standards and practices for Gannett’s USAToday Network of newsrooms and is responsible for guiding journalism best practices, diversity outreach and student programming for Gannett’s Content division. He’s been a key and beloved member of the USAToday newsroom for more than 20 years, and we’re incredibly fortunate to have him join the Journal. Brent is a graduate of the University of Maryland College Park. Carrie Melago, our Editor of Training who has developed and organized a terrific series of masterclasses, orientations and other training opportunities, in addition to onboarding and overseeing the logistics for last year’s interns, will report to Brent and will work closely with him in the development and implementation of our new, broader strategy. Nancy Morse, our expert News Trainer, will also report to Brent.

Talent: Marie Beaudette has the new title of Assistant Managing Editor, Talent, in recognition of her excellent work in identifying talent, building a pipeline of potential employees, running the selection of our interns and helping to guide the careers of our current journalists. Under Marie’s continued strong leadership, we will ensure that our newsroom is staffed with diverse, best-in-class journalists who can continue the tradition of producing and publishing best-in-class work.

Finance: And last but not least, Jennair Rennie, our tireless numbers expert whose creativity and gumption allow us to do so much while keeping within spitting distance of our budget, has the new title of Finance Director of the Journal News Department. She and her excellent team in South Brunswick — Kelly Allen, Ashley Bosco and Mark Neumann — are responsible for all things financial for the newsroom, including invoices, contracts, budgets and forecasting, as well as working with our Dow Jones colleagues in Payroll, Finance and Benefits. The entire newsroom owes them a debt of gratitude for what they do for us each day.

All of the members of this team are here to serve the entire newsroom, and we are very lucky to have them. Please join me in wishing them all well in their roles.

Sincerely,

Karen