Reuters is looking for an experienced and energetic newsroom leader to be our Bureau Chief for West & Central Africa, based in Dakar. The successful candidate will lead a team of correspondents and a network of over 50 stringers and freelancers covering 23 incredibly varied countries.

About the Role

The successful candidate will be able to write and oversee ground-breaking, insightful news coverage on a wide range of topics, from rapid economic and political developments to instability and militant violence in the West Africa Sahel region. They will be comfortable covering news for a range of Reuters clients, from military coups and climate change to mining production and the cocoa crop. West & Central Africa’s rich deposits of minerals make it an important region for the clean energy transition. It is home to the world’s top cocoa producers and some of the fastest growing economies in Africa.

A willingness to travel at short notice around the region and the resilience to deal with sometimes challenging logistics are essential.

The bureau chief leads a team that spends a good deal of time working with local reporters, many of them working in French, to generate compelling stories in English. West and Central Africa is ethnically and culturally diverse, but also politically turbulent with a history of rebellions, coups and election disputes. The region has vibrant art and music scenes, and an emerging tech sector.

The ideal candidate will have a proven ability to handle big breaking news and to produce a body of ambitious, deeply reported stories. They will be a strong writer and editor, and they will be able to work closely with visuals and graphics colleagues to tell stories in a variety of formats.

About You

To be our Bureau Chief for West & Central Africa, you will likely have:

• At least five years’ experience with international news outlets.
• Hostile environment and/or emerging markets experience
• Experience finding, mentoring, and nurturing talents
• Fluent French essential
• Knowledge of/experience in commodities and energy markets
• Strong record of nurturing sources, breaking news, and producing in-depth stories.
• Clean, lively copy that sparkles – whether writing your own or editing someone else’s
• Familiarity with different story-telling formats for a digital audience
• Experience managing a team.

Please note, the deadline for applications is August 25th.

What’s in it for you

At Reuters, our people are our greatest assets. Here are some of the benefits we offer for your personal and professional growth:

• Global Career: As a global company, we can offer a truly international career and progression opportunities
• Learning & Development: On the job learning and coaching. We also have a dedicated training team focused on the continuous development of our journalists
• Benefits: We offer competitive salary packages and market leading benefits including paid volunteering days
• Perks: Work alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and a team who provide unmatched, award-winning coverage of the world’s most important stories.

About Reuters

Reuters is the world’s largest multimedia news provider. Founded in 1851, it is committed to the Trust Principles of independence, integrity and freedom from bias. With unmatched coverage in over 16 languages, and reaching billions of people worldwide every day, Reuters provides trusted intelligence that powers humans and machines to make smart decisions. It supplies business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world’s media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers.

Reuters: The Real World in Real Time

Do you want to be part of a team helping re-invent the way knowledge professionals work? How about a team that works every day to create a more transparent, just and inclusive future? At Thomson Reuters, we’ve been doing just that for almost 160 years. Our industry-leading products and services include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news services – Reuters. We help these professionals do their jobs better, creating more time for them to focus on the things that matter most: advising, advocating, negotiating, governing and informing.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments that celebrate diversity and inclusion. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward.

Accessibility

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer providing a drug-free workplace.

We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

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