TN Ninan, editor and publisher of Business Standard after being associated with the paper since 1992, has decided to step down from the post of editor. However, he will continue to be the chairman and MD of Business Standard.
Sanjaya Baru has been appointed as the consulting editor of BS, and will assume duties from October 1, 2009. Baru will subsequently take over as the editor of the newspaper from January 1, 2010.
Ninan will assume the new role of editorial director from January 1, 2010. Later, Baru will take over as editorial director of the company from Ninan.
Baru has an experience in varied fields, including academics, journalism and government services. He was associated with Financial Express (FE), after which he worked with National University of Singapore and then at PM Manmohan Singh’s office as his media advisor.
During his career spanning more than a decade, Baru has worked with The Economic Times (ET), The Times of India and ICRIER (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations).
Ninan joined BS when the daily was a single-edition in Kolkata with a circulation of just 8,000 copies — one-20th the size of the leader, The Economic Times. From there is has managed to being one of the most reputed financial dailies of the country, BS has thrived under the leadership of Ninan.
Of the many initiatives taken by Ninan, the idea of a joint venture with Financial Times, which already had a syndication tie-up with ET, was mooted by him during the early 90’s, in an attempt to take the newspaper national.
At that time, ET was selling at Rs.2 on weekdays and had a sales figure between 1.5-2 lakh copies. BS however took the risk of charging a higher cover price of Rs.4 and was aimed at the top-end audience as a premium product.
Prior to joining BS, Ninan was the editor of the ET. He has also been associated with Business World as editor and India Today as its executive editor.He was honoured with the BD Goenka Award in 1992 for excellence in journalism and the Sachin Chaudhari Award for excellence in financial journalism in 1984.