WSJ/Dow Jones hires reporter in Tokyo

Jacob Schlesinger, Japan editor-in-chief for The Wall Street Journal, made the following staff announcement on Monday:

We’re delighted to announce that veteran Japan journalist Chester Dawson will join The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires Tokyo bureau as a senior reporter. He will focus primarily on the auto industry, but will also roam more broadly across the Japan story.

Chester spent ten years in Tokyo reporting on the country’s ‘lost decade’ for BusinessWeek, the Far Eastern Economic Review, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News. He wrote the book, literally, on Toyota — Lexus: The Relentless Pursuit, published in 2004 by Wiley. His most recent book, Frommer’s Japanese Phrase Book & Culture Guide, was published by Wiley in 2008. After his Japan stint, Chester worked in New York as international finance editor at BusinessWeek, overseeing coverage of the financial industry and markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Chester has spent the past four and a half years watching the world of finance from the inside. Most recently, he worked as a senior editor and vice president in the asset management unit of J.P. Morgan, where he wrote and edited white papers for institutional investors. Prior to that, he worked in New York for Tokyo-based hedge fund SPARX Asset Management.

Chester graduated with an M.A. from Harvard University in East Asian studies, and earned his B.A. in history at Ohio University, after spending his junior year at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Please join me in welcoming Chester. He’ll start Oct. 4.