FT gets its first female editor after 131 years
Roula Khalaf, who will become the first woman to edit the Financial Times in its 131-year history, poses for a portrait at Financial Times offices in London, Britain on September 19, 2019.
Roula Khalaf will become the first woman to edit the Financial Times in its 131-year history after Lionel Barber, Britain’s most senior financial journalist, said he would step down.
Barber said on Tuesday that he would leave in January after 14 years as editor and 34 years at the Nikkei-owned newspaper, which had 1 million paying readers in 2019, with digital subscribers accounting for more than 75 percent.
Khalaf has served as deputy editor, foreign editor and Middle East editor during her more than two decades at the salmon-pink FT and in recent years has sought to increase diversity in the newsroom and attract more female readers.
“It’s a great honor to be appointed editor of the FT, the greatest news organization in the world,” said Khalaf, whose earlier writing for Forbes magazine had earned her a small role in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
“I look forward to building on Lionel Barber’s extraordinary achievements.”
Her article described the leading character Jordan Belfort as sounding like a twisted version of Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers.
Khalaf, from Lebanon, will join Katharine Viner at the Guardian as one of the few women to edit major newspapers in Britain and one of few leading female editors in the world after Jill Abramson left the New York Times.
