Richard Verrier named L.A. Times Business editor

The following announcement is sent on behalf of Interim Executive Editor Terry Tang and Managing Editor Hector Becerra:

We’re very happy to announce that Richard Verrier will become Business editor, effective today.

In his new position, Verrier will oversee the Business department and Company Town, which will be combined into one desk. This new structure will allow us to deepen Business coverage, with a focus on California, and provide more support for our award-winning entertainment industry coverage by Company Town reporters. Verrier has run the Company Town team since 2016, overseeing a number of groundbreaking investigations, including stories about sexual misconduct at CBS TV stations, corruption inside the Golden Globes and the “Rust” shooting tragedy that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

He has been with The Times since 2001. After stints at the St. Petersburg Times and the Orlando Sentinel in Florida, Verrier joined the paper as a reporter, and for many years covered all aspects of the entertainment industry — from shareholder battles at Walt Disney to the 2007-08 writers’ strike — before turning to editing. Verrier is a native of Montreal and a graduate of the University of Toronto and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.