Vice President; Director of Strategic Planning, The Associated Press

 

James M. (Jim) Kennedy leads strategic planning across all divisions of the world's largest news organization, including services for print, broadcast and new media.

 

He began his second stint with the Associated Press in 2001, after two years as executive director of product planning for the Wall Street Journal Online, also known as WSJ.com. Before moving to the Journal, he spent 13 years at AP, first as business news editor and later as the founding director of the news agency's multimedia department.

 

As business editor of AP, Kennedy led the agency’s award-winning coverage of the stock market crash in 1987 and oversaw the development of new data services that first enabled newspapers to customize their listings of stocks and mutual funds. In 1995, he was tapped to lead a new department that created The WIRE, AP’s first Web-based news service, honored in 1999 by the Smithsonian Institution.

 

Kennedy has been a board member and president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, a founding member of the Media Center at the American Press Institute, and a founder and board member of the Online News Association.

 

He began his journalism career at the Ogdensburg (N.Y.) Journal as a reporter and later managing editor. He also spent several years as a bureau chief, foreign correspondent and business editor for the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune before moving to AP.

 

He is a 1975 graduate of Amherst College, where he majored in American Studies. He lives with his wife, Cindy, and two daughters in Pleasantville, N.Y.

 

Mr. Kennedy was a guest on Voice of the Voters on March 18, 2009.