Reuters’ Bowen Defects To Dow Jones To Head Digital Business

Alisa Bowen, who has worked on overhauling Reuters’ consumer business, is heading to Dow Jones (NSDQ: NWS) to run the company’s digital business. Bowen was one of the point people on Reuters’ website redesign iPhone and iPad apps. She will now set the strategy, development and operations for the WSJ.com, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, SmartMoney.com, AllThingsD.com and their mobile applications. While positioned as the successor to Gordon McLeod, who resigned from Dow Jones as head of the WSJDN in September, Bowen’s role is slightly different is more of a general manager. Reuters (NYSE: TRI) has no plans for a replacement at this time.

Bowen has been with Reuters since 2001, starting as a business analyst for media strategy. Two years later, she became GM of Reuters.com and has been promoted a number of times since. This past summer, Bowen was elevated to global head of business operations, from SVP, Global Head of Consumer Publishing, Media, a post she held since 2008.

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She will start the new job in two weeks and will report to Todd Larsen, president of Dow Jones.

McLeod, who officially left the company on Oct. 1, left the company around the same time as Ann Sarnoff, who was president of DJ Ventures since 2006 and exited to become COO at BBC Worldwide America.

As for Reuters, the loss of Bowen comes as the company continues to build its multimedia and consumer-facing businesses as challenges from Dow Jones and Bloomberg become more intense. At the time of Bowen’s promotion this past summer, the company had already been looking to its next phase and had given other execs larger roles in charting its digital strategy.