MUMBAI: Dow Jones & Co. has appointed Richard F. Zannino as chief executive officer. Zannino succeeds the outgoing CEO Peter Kann. Zannino's appointment is effective from 1 February.
Zannino joined Dow Jones as chief financial officer in 2001. He is the first non-journalist to lead the company since 1933.
Kann is exiting the company with wife Karen Elliott House, who is senior vice president of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal. The couple is expected to leave the company in the next few months. Kann will remain as chairman until 2007, when he reaches the company's mandatory retirement age of 65.
In addition to the Journal and its international and online editions, Dow Jones owns Barron's and the Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Indexes, MarketWatch and the Ottaway group of community newspapers. Dow Jones is co-owner with Reuters Group of Factiva and with Hearst of SmartMoney. Dow Jones also provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.