WSJ names new finance editors

Francesco Guerrara, the finance and markets editor at The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following staff promotions on Thursday:

The Finance and Markets group has come a long way since Gerry identified us as the “guinea pig” of newsroom integration a few months ago. We are now operating as a unified group, serving all our real-time and print platforms and working ever more closely with our colleagues in Europe and Asia.  Our reporters and editors must take the credit for the smooth integration and the great content they produce day in and day out or, more accurately, minute in, minute out.

As we proceeded through integration we made several key appointments which we never got to announce. It is worthwhile recapping them here.

Rob Hunter is named Banking Editor. Rob joined the WSJ in 2010 and for the past three years has been the Personal Finance Editor, overseeing the Weekend Investor print section and its online manifestations.  In that capacity, Rob shepherded a steady flow of C1 stories and Page One projects on everything from Congressional insider trading and fund-manager window dressing to college- savings and retirement. His various assignments showcased Rob’s versatility and ability as an editor and a manager.  Before the Journal, Rob worked at Bloomberg BusinessWeek, where he was assistant managing editor for features and, before that, senior editor for finance. He honed his skills at SmartMoney, where he was editor of the website. Before joining SmartMoney in 2000, he was Managing Editor of Derivatives Strategy magazine, so don’t mess with him when it comes to CDOs.

Aaron Lucchetti is named Deputy Banking Editor. Aaron’s move into editing comes after a distinguished career as a reporter. Aaron has worked at the Money & Investing section since 1996. Most recently, he covered banking and finance in New York, focusing on Morgan Stanley. Prior to his current assignment, Aaron wrote about technology and electronic trading on Wall Street, including breaking stories on the consolidation of global markets such as the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In 2009, Aaron and a group of Journal reporters won the Gerald Loeb Award in the Breaking News category for stories about the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The team of reporters also was named as a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. In 2012, Aaron and a colleague won an award from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for online breaking news coverage of brokerage firm MF Global’s collapse in the fall of 2011.

Tim Layer is named Deputy Markets Desk Editor. Tim has been a mainstay of our editing desk ever since rejoining the Journal 2½ years ago. In his new role, he will continue to make stories better but also help Tim Annett to run the desk. Tim has been with Dow Jones and the Journal for 24 years total. Before rejoining the WSJ he ran his own niche publishing business for 6½ years. Before that, he was WSJ bureau chief for commercial real estate and was national Technology editor in the late 90s.  In the mid-90s, Tim was news editor of the groundbreaking Dow Jones Investor Network, the world’s first financial news service to stream live audio on the Web. He was Deputy Managing Editor of the WSJE, based in Brussels, in the early 90s. Tim started out as a copyreader on the Monitor Desk. Importantly, he plays a mean guitar for the Six Stars band.

Brad Reagan is named Investing Editor. A Texas native, Brad worked at the Waco Tribune-Herald and Austin American-Statesman before joining the Wall Street Journal for the first time in 1999. He left the paper for a soon-to-fail dot-com (and wrote about the experience for the Journal) and then shifted to writing books on subjects including professional poker players and songwriter Billy Joe Shaver. He also had stints at SmartMoney magazine and The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi before returning to the Journal in 2011. Brad is a gifted editor with an incredible ability to make stories sing. That’s evident in both his own writing – see his excellent pieces for WSJ Money recently – and the copy he touches.

Brendan Intindola is named Deputy Investing Editor. Brendan is the rare journalist that has experienced life on the other side of the tracks. He worked at Reuters for 11 ½ years , covering, among other things, equity markets, corporate governance and Wall Street. From there, he moved to the NYSE and Finra, the Wall Street regulator. He also spent time in communications at a large international law firm before joining Dow Jones in September 2011 as deputy editor overseeing the U.S. stocks team. In the spring of 2012, he moved over to oversee the wire’s financial-services coverage. His passion for careful nurturing of both stories and reporters is reflected in his hobby: arborism.

Robert Sabat is named Personal Finance Editor. Bob was deputy personal finance editor for the past three years. Before that, he was an editor at Personal Journal, where he edited a wide range of stories, ranging from the wealth-management “class system” to Ruth Simon’s prescient stories on the mortgage bubble and Jeff Zaslow’s Moving On column. Before coming to the Journal, he was an editor at magazines including SmartMoney, Interview, GQ and Us Weekly. As a result, he actually knows what life outside financial journalism is like. Bob is a terrific editor with a keen eye for art and layout. His calm under pressure is legendary as is his good humor.

Please join us in congratulating the new appointees and wishing them well in their roles.