WSJ’s Guerrera plans to write plays

Here is the note that Wall Street Journal financial editor Francesco Guerrera sent to his colleagues on Tuesday morning:

Ladies and Gents,

After four fantastic years, I have decided to leave The Wall Street Journal to pursue other opportunities. I have had a brilliant time, worked with a uniquely talented group of reporters and editors and had the chance to drive coverage on some amazing stories in markets and finance.

Our group has achieved a lot in the past four years: we launched a new Markets Page, we created MoneyBeat and watched it grow to become the defining blog for financial and business news, we expanded the global reach of our coverage, we broke a lot of news and we reorganized the newsroom to meet the demands of the digital and real-time work, all the while producing some fantastic enterprise journalism most recently epitomized by our series on Pimco.

This is an incredible organization that has given me and many others the chance to practice journalism at the highest level surrounded by the best colleagues at the service of savvy, demanding and attentive readers.

Now, it’s time for me to do something different both inside and outside journalism. I love this profession and financial news but I am looking forward to looking at a diverse set of opportunities while indulging my other passion: writing plays.

I will miss a lot of people, the buzz of the newsroom, the teamwork and the tremendous smarts of the WSJ. I will remain an assiduous reader and I hope to stay in touch with many of you.