WSJ names Pensiero as editor of talent

Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker sent out the following staff promotion on Monday afternoon:

I’m pleased to announce that Jim Pensiero is appointed Editor, Talent.

In this vital new role, Jim will oversee the hiring, development and training of staff throughout our integrated news organization, and will lead the investment in human capital that will be crucial to our continued success.

Jim is well suited to this role, as someone who knows the staff of the Journal and Dow Jones Newswires perhaps better than anyone. He will work closely with top editors to ensure that we have the right people in the right places. He will report to me.

Training will be of special importance in Jim’s new responsibilities, to make certain that our peerless (but still sometimes slightly fusty) news organization advances in the digital age and as we ask you to take on new duties. He will retain his responsibility for technology operations related to Methode—including the planned installation of new Methode systems in London and Hong Kong.

Jim has been one of this news organization’s most accomplished and trusted figures for nearly 30 years. Most recently, he served as editor-in-chief for DJ FX Trader. He has been a deputy managing editor of the Journal since June 2008 and before that worked in a variety of positions that read like a compendium of editorial leadership: the Journal’s night news editor; assistant national news editor; deputy national editor; assistant managing editor; assistant publisher; vice president of special projects and vice president of news operations.

Jim is widely acknowledged for his steadfast and selfless leadership on Sept. 11, 2001 and his fast thinking was critical to the Wall Street Journal’s ability to publish its historic paper the next day. He started his journalism career in Passaic, NJ, and Philadelphia and worked at the Associated Press before joining the Journal as a copy editor in 1984.