You've enjoyed a long and successful career in journalism, both as a reporter and as an editor of publications like T: The New York Times Style Magazine and the International Herald Tribune business sections. In your mind, what is the role of an editor, and how integral is an editor to the entire publication process?

Editors serve several very important purposes in any publication. First, editors are reality checks - the dispassionate voices that ask, "Are we sure this is true?" or "Is this the best way to approach this?" Second, editors are quality control - the second pair of eyes that catches the errors of distraction or omission that shouldn't appear in professionally finished copy. Third, and perhaps most important, editors represent the consumers - the most important part of any publication - by making sure the final product is worth their time and money. Reporting and writing are solo acts, but editing is a team sport - and the team aspect is what many editors like about it.‍‍

‍Your work spans many subject areas, including business, politics and culture, but you say that your specialties are luxury hospitality and personal finance. How did you develop your expertise in these two vastly different topics? Do you feel that there is a connection between them?

‍I learned to love personal finance early in my career, writing for Forbes. A lot of my ideas about smart money management were formed there, and I still find that stories about how fortunes are made, and sometimes lost, are among the most compelling to write (and read). Luxury hospitality came more recently: A marketing consortium of luxury hotels asked me to write the stories of 60 of their exquisite properties in Europe for their website. I couldn't believe my luck! As for a connection, I suppose you could say that one pursuit enables the other: If you do a good job managing your money, you will be able to afford the luxury hotel experience - which I firmly believe everyone should have at least once in their lives.

‍You’ve written for a variety of news organizations, but you’ve also worked in the corporate world. In your opinion, what role does communications play in corporate success? Have you found that writing for a corporation is more or less similar to news writing than you’d previously thought?‍

You can have a fantastic product or service, but if you don't have clear, engaging, inspiring, and - most of all - authentic communications at all levels of the business, then you're going to have a hard time attracting and holding customers, or building a team and motivating them to follow you. I've found through my private client work that the building blocks of good journalism and good corporate writing are much the same: research, reporting, analysis, organization, careful word choice, fidelity to the facts. The main differences are the audience and what they will do with the information. But the goal is always to tell a great story that people will remember.