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L. Gordon Crovitz
#2 in National Politics
Description: Louis Gordon Crovitz is a global media executive and advisor to media and technology companies. He is a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal who also served as executive vice-president of Dow Jones and launched the company's Consumer Media Group, which under his leadership integrated the global print, online, digital, TV and other editions of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron's across news, advertising, marketing and other functions. He stepped down from those positions in December 2007, when News Corp. completed its acquisition of Dow Jones. He writes a weekly column in The Wall Street Journal, titled "Information Age." Since leaving Dow Jones, he has become a director and advisor to several companies, including technology-based media companies. He is a member of the board of directors of ProQuest and Blurb. In addition, he is on the board of advisors of several early-stage companies, including SocialMedian, UpCompany, Halogen Guides, YouNoodle, CEOExpress and Clickability. He is an investor in betaworks, a New York incubator for startups, and in Silicon Alley Media. He has also advised private equity firms on the acquisition of information and media companies. While at Dow Jones, he led the redesign of The Wall Street Journal in January 2007, repositioning the print edition to focus on "what the news means," with the web edition addressing "what's happening right now," with the aim of rethinking what a newspaper should be in the Digital Age. He turned around the financial performance of the Journal to become strongly profitable after earlier losing money. He also led the creation of the online news service Factiva, which he chaired for several years, and initiated the acquisition of publicly traded MarketWatch as well as specialist services Private Equity Analyst, VentureOne and VentureWire, London-based news franchise eFinancial News and Frankfurt-based newswire VWD. He oversaw the growth of The Wall Street Journal Online to the world's largest paid subscription news web site, with over one million paying subscribers at the end of 2007. Earlier in his career at Dow Jones, he served as the corporate vice president for planning and strategy; in 1998, he helped sell the Telerate division and helped craft a three-year plan for the company focused on growing Internet revenues. He was editor and publisher of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong, doubling revenues, and at age 22 years, was founding editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. He received a law degree from Yale Law School, previously earning a law degree as a Rhodes Scholar from Wadham College of Oxford University. He is married to Minky Worden, media director for Human Rights Watch. They have two sons. He was previously married to Yale law professor (now Harvard law professor) Anne Alstott.
