Best in Business: Herald boosts coverage with premium hires
Agenda-setting news and analysis about to get even better as stable of award-winning journalists grows
The best in the business just got even better. The New Zealand Herald is excited to be boosting its business coverage with an expanded team of journalists, writers and columnists set to deliver even more exclusive business news, insightful analysis and opinion.
Additions to the country’s premier business team include senior journalist Kate MacNamara, who joins the Business Herald from Stuff, feature writer Jane Phare, and Herald court reporter Sam Hurley. New columnists are also joining the stable, including former Finance Minister Steven Joyce and entrepreneurs Ben Kepes and Cecilia Robinson.
They will join the Business Herald’s
existing editors, journalists and writers: Duncan Bridgeman, Grant Bradley, Liam Dann, Anne Gibson, Jamie Gray, Andrea Fox, Mark Fryer, Chris Keall, Matt Nippert, Fran O’Sullivan, Tamsyn Parker, Hamish Rutherford, Aimee Shaw, Cameron Smith, Nicholas Sorensen and Damien Venuto.
With existing columnists such as Diana Clement, Brian Fallow, Mary Holm, Christopher Niesche, and Juha Saarinen, the Business Herald team prides itself on delivering agendasetting content seven days a week.
NZME head of premium business Duncan Bridgeman is thrilled to be announcing the new hires.
“Now more than ever, readers need strong, trustworthy and insightful business news and opinion,” Bridgeman says. “I’m excited — we have some great new people joining our talented team.”
The appointments form part of an increased focus on Premium Business content, already a key driver of digital subscriptions since the Herald
launched Premium content 14 months ago.
Since then NZME has added more than 36,000 paying digital subscribers and a further 34,000 are subscribed as part of their print subscription. Business stories continue to attract high numbers of new subscribers as people seek out trusted, quality information to inform their decision making.
MacNamara has been a print and broadcast journalist for 20 years. Most recently she’s been a business columnist for Stuff, where she worked on high-profile stories such as ANZ’s purchase of a $7.5 million house for former CEO David Hisco.
She worked as a radio reporter and producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for more than a decade. Her work has aired on the BBC and appeared in the National Post, Sydney Morning Herald and the Irish Times.
Phare has had life-long experience as a news reporter, feature writer and editor since starting at the Herald as a cadet reporter.
Phare helped launch a range of products for the Herald, including Viva, the Weekend Herald and the Herald on Sunday. She achieved several “firsts” for women in journalism, including her appointment as assistant editor of the Herald and editor of the Weekend Herald. She has been awarded the Harry Brittain Fellowship and the Fulbright American Program scholarship.
During breaks away from the Herald she has launched and edited two magazines, worked on TV documentaries, written a book, The Spirit of Rose-Noelle, and run the national Voyager Media Awards.
Hurley has covered some of the country’s highest profile court cases while at the Herald, including Financial Markets Authority and Serious Fraud Office cases and corporate court battles.
Joyce was elected as an MP in November 2008 and quickly became a key figure of the National-led Government that ran for three terms.
He was part of former Prime Minister John Key’s so-called kitchen
Cabinet with Bill English, Gerry Brownlee and Simon Power, and was one of Key’s most trusted confidants.
Before politics Joyce was involved in running businesses. He started radio Energy FM in New Plymouth, then with two partners built the Radioworks network which, when sold, netted him $6m.
Joyce joins a growing stable of Business Herald columnists alongside award-winning opinion writers such as O’Sullivan and Dann.
The Business Herald has also secured a wide range of guest columnists including My Food Bag co-founder Cecilia Robinson, management expert Bruce Cotterill, former publisher Barry Colman, investment heavyweights Paul Glass of Devon Funds and James Lee of Jarden, and Xero’s Craig Hudson.
More announcements will follow as we continue to develop the country’s number one business team.