About Me
I am an author and journalist. In senior editing positions at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, I oversaw coverage of a variety of issues, directed award-winning journalism and hired dozens of reporters and editors. In April 2020, I joined the Dow Jones Special Committee, an independent body charged with monitoring adherence of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires to the highest ethical and professional standards.
My second book, A Fatal Inheritance, was published May 14, 2024, by Henry Holt & Co., an imprint of Macmillan. It's a non-fiction medical mystery as well as a memoir about my family's tragic cancer history. It will tell the remarkable story of a couple of then-young doctors who were puzzled in the late 1960s by a high rate of seemingly unrelated cancers in some families, and hypothesized that it might be hereditary. They were initially dismissed by many experts. But they weren't deterred. Over two decades later, aided by other pioneering scientists and by advances in molecular biology technology, they identified a very rare mutation in a critically important cancer gene as the cause of the cancers. In the process, the doctors helped to greatly expand the understanding of genetic causes of cancer. (What's now known as Li-Fraumeni Syndrome was named after them.) The book tells the parallel stories of my family's journey as we tried to understand why cancer killed my mom, my two sisters, my brother and one of his sons, along with the journey of the researchers as they endeavored to solve the mystery. In 2021, I wrote an essay explaining why I embarked on this personal odyssey and decided to write this book.
My first book, Billion Dollar Brand Club, also published by Henry Holt & Co., explored the explosive growth of disruptive startups - like Dollar Shave Club and Harry's, Casper and Tuft & Needle, Warby Parker and Hubble, ThirdLove and eSalon, and countless others - creating digitally-native consumer product brands. Published on Jan. 28, 2020, it examines the many ways that technology is leveling the playing field, including in marketing, manufacturing and distribution, and enabling these newcomers to challenge long-dominant companies.
In my decades-long newspaper career, journalists working for me have won five Pulitzer Prizes - for national reporting, explanatory reporting, international reporting and commentary - as well as Polk, Loeb and other awards.
In 2009, I was honored with the annual Minard editor award given by the Gerald Loeb Awards for directing coverage of causes of the financial market meltdown in the fall of 2008; that coverage was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in the public service category. In 2017, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers honored me with its distinguished achievement award.
As a reporter early in my career, I worked in Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston and London for the Wall Street Journal, covering a range of topics from retailing to corporate takeovers to the adoption of the euro currency. I directed coverage of the markets crash of 2000 as the newspaper's Money & Investing editor. My last assignment at the WSJ was assistant managing editor overseeing finance coverage and working on the launch of the Saturday edition.
At the New York Times, I was business and economics editor for nine years, and then was appointed to the masthead as deputy managing editor overseeing new initiatives, and worked closely with the senior executives on the business side of the newspaper. Among other things, I oversaw the integration of the then-International Herald Tribune with the New York Times to help create the New York Times international edition and was an advisor to Arthur G. Sulzberger, now the newspaper's publisher, on his 2014 Innovation Report.
At the Los Angeles Times, I was a managing editor, helping to oversee news coverage as well as develop new initiatives, including events featuring prominent figures in the news; travel events featuring LA Times staffers; and the launch of DesignLA, a quarterly magazine focusing on the burgeoning and diverse creative community in Los Angeles.
My second book, A Fatal Inheritance, was published May 14, 2024, by Henry Holt & Co., an imprint of Macmillan. It's a non-fiction medical mystery as well as a memoir about my family's tragic cancer history. It will tell the remarkable story of a couple of then-young doctors who were puzzled in the late 1960s by a high rate of seemingly unrelated cancers in some families, and hypothesized that it might be hereditary. They were initially dismissed by many experts. But they weren't deterred. Over two decades later, aided by other pioneering scientists and by advances in molecular biology technology, they identified a very rare mutation in a critically important cancer gene as the cause of the cancers. In the process, the doctors helped to greatly expand the understanding of genetic causes of cancer. (What's now known as Li-Fraumeni Syndrome was named after them.) The book tells the parallel stories of my family's journey as we tried to understand why cancer killed my mom, my two sisters, my brother and one of his sons, along with the journey of the researchers as they endeavored to solve the mystery. In 2021, I wrote an essay explaining why I embarked on this personal odyssey and decided to write this book.
My first book, Billion Dollar Brand Club, also published by Henry Holt & Co., explored the explosive growth of disruptive startups - like Dollar Shave Club and Harry's, Casper and Tuft & Needle, Warby Parker and Hubble, ThirdLove and eSalon, and countless others - creating digitally-native consumer product brands. Published on Jan. 28, 2020, it examines the many ways that technology is leveling the playing field, including in marketing, manufacturing and distribution, and enabling these newcomers to challenge long-dominant companies.
In my decades-long newspaper career, journalists working for me have won five Pulitzer Prizes - for national reporting, explanatory reporting, international reporting and commentary - as well as Polk, Loeb and other awards.
In 2009, I was honored with the annual Minard editor award given by the Gerald Loeb Awards for directing coverage of causes of the financial market meltdown in the fall of 2008; that coverage was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in the public service category. In 2017, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers honored me with its distinguished achievement award.
As a reporter early in my career, I worked in Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston and London for the Wall Street Journal, covering a range of topics from retailing to corporate takeovers to the adoption of the euro currency. I directed coverage of the markets crash of 2000 as the newspaper's Money & Investing editor. My last assignment at the WSJ was assistant managing editor overseeing finance coverage and working on the launch of the Saturday edition.
At the New York Times, I was business and economics editor for nine years, and then was appointed to the masthead as deputy managing editor overseeing new initiatives, and worked closely with the senior executives on the business side of the newspaper. Among other things, I oversaw the integration of the then-International Herald Tribune with the New York Times to help create the New York Times international edition and was an advisor to Arthur G. Sulzberger, now the newspaper's publisher, on his 2014 Innovation Report.
At the Los Angeles Times, I was a managing editor, helping to oversee news coverage as well as develop new initiatives, including events featuring prominent figures in the news; travel events featuring LA Times staffers; and the launch of DesignLA, a quarterly magazine focusing on the burgeoning and diverse creative community in Los Angeles.