We are pleased to announce that effective March 1, Nick Ferguson, who has been a co-deputy editor of FinanceAsia since 2009, will become our new website editor. Long-standing web editor Anette Jönsson will take on the title of equities editor to focus more on writing feature-length stories and analytical web pieces.
The move plays to the strength of both of these veteran FinanceAsia writers. Nick is keen to develop our site to reflect the many different ways that people now use the internet to access and share information. For example, faithful readers will have noticed that in 2010 we introduced a poll, which is Nick’s weekly baby. His often-wacky questions bring a sense of humour to FinanceAsia on a more regular basis. For example, this month he asked readers if they cared about UBS’s much-mocked 44-page dress code, which yielded the headline: “Leave UBS’s underwear alone, say readers.” More seriously, he has focused on comparing China’s economic miracle with Japan’s 1980s heyday, questioned the usefulness of the Hong Kong dollar peg and this past summer asked readers to forecast the end of the global financial crisis.
His macro-approach has also produced some of our top stories, such as his piece “WikiLeaks targets finance industry”, which he wrote in December. A trend we’ve noticed when scouring our most-read stories is that big-picture themes are well received. Nick wants to offer more of that, as well as pushing our content into as many different gadgets and devices as possible, and engaging our readers in a conversation.
"I built my first website back in 1996, sneaking on to the art department's computers during lunch hour, so I'm happy that my nerdy hobby has at last found a productive outlet," said Nick. "I look forward to bringing a bit of Web 2.0 to FinanceAsia readers — and adding the missing apostrophe on our menu bar."
But fear not, we will not stray from our core mission: to be the best at delivering capital markets analysis in Asia. And that’s precisely why Anette wants time to focus more on writing. “When I started this job in 2006, I’d say it was about two-thirds writing, and one-third editing,” said Anette. “But the work-load on both fronts has grown exponentially, and it’s no longer a job for just one person. When I look at what I’d rather do – edit or write – the obvious answer is write.”
Anette, who recently was the MC at our annual FinanceAsia Awards for Achievement dinner quipping one-liners about deals non-stop, is well-respected by the investment banking community. Bankers know that she won’t always write favourably about their firm, but she will always be fair. Her web coverage is a key driver of our website; just about daily one of Anette’s stories is the top read piece of the day. I’m letting the cat out of the bag here, as this has yet to be announced internally, but her cover story in November on Agricultural Bank of China has just won an internal competition for which I asked select top bankers and executives in the region to pick the best magazine story we printed in 2010. Anette’s target will be to write more such covers in the future.
With Denise Wee hitting home runs on the debt capital markets front, Sameera Anand weighing in on M&A and Lillian Liu covering China, we have a solid bench. Freeing up Anette to cover more big-picture equities stories further fortifies our coverage during a year that has started out strong. Meanwhile, Nick’s focus on interactivity -- he will be ushering in our iPad and iPhone offerings, and expect regular tweets from us -- is the next natural step in developing our website.
