Managing Editor/Senior Journalist (Business Maverick)

Job Advert Summary

Do you have an eye for editorial detail and a brain for business reporting? Business Maverick needs a Managing Editor/Senior Journalist!

Daily Maverick is a fiercely independent news publication dedicated to fearless journalism and holding power to account. The Managing Editor of Business Maverick is a linchpin role in the newsroom, instrumental in ensuring the smooth, efficient production of high-quality business news content, leading a team of journalists, and managing strict daily, weekly, and monthly multi-platform outputs. This role drives strategic content alignment with the yearly News Game Plan, balancing editorial excellence with financial sustainability and high ethical standards.

Minimum Requirements

Essential Skills & Current Experience

• Extensive writing, reporting, and high-level editorial management experience within a deadline-driven digital news desk environment.
• Proven track record of managing strict multi-platform production schedules, digital newsletters, and complex content workflows.
• Strong narrative editing, fact-checking, and data validation techniques.
• Strong numerical skills
• Comprehensive knowledge of media law, business economics, and journalistic ethics, with strict adherence to the SA Press Code and Daily Maverick Editorial Policy.
• Intermediate-to-advanced digital literacy, including proficiency with CMS, web analytics, audience metrics, and Google Work Suite.
• Demonstrable experience managing, mentoring, and developing journalists, while maintaining resource efficiency and financial discipline.
• Excellent knowledge of the business environment, key players and industry trends and issues.

Key Attributes Required for Success in This Role

• Integrity & Critical Thinking: An unwavering commitment to ethical practice and the ability to critically assess complex financial and business information, questioning assumptions and potential biases.
• Proactiveness & Initiative: Demonstrates a self-starting attitude, steering innovative business news formats, visual elements, and strategic beat coverages ahead of market trends.
• Adaptability & Problem-Solving: Flexible in managing changing priorities, breaking macroeconomic events, and evolving technical workflows under tight newsroom deadlines.
• Empathy & Respect: Treats sources, whistleblowers, readers, and newsroom colleagues respectfully and professionally with demonstrated emotional regulation and understanding.
• Collaboration & Communication: Effectively works with internal cross-functional departments (Studio, Tech, Growth, Sales) and communicates clearly, transparently, and respectfully, both verbally and in writing.
• Audience-Centricity: Deep understanding and application of audience analytics, digital consumption trends, and user needs to build reader loyalty and community.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Editorial Leadership & Desk Management: Leads and supports the business journalism team, driving the delivery of compelling, accurate, and timely news content aligned with Daily Maverick's editorial vision. Streamlines workflows, manages story assignments, and optimises editorial processes to maintain desk efficiency.
• Writing, Analysis & Opinion: Writes and publishes original articles, in-depth analyses, and opinion pieces for Business Maverick, bringing an authoritative, credible voice to South Africa's business and economic conversation.
• Produces journalism designed for impact — informing and empowering readers, shaping public debate, exposing wrongdoing, and holding corporate and economic power to account — in direct service of Daily Maverick's mission of fearless, independent journalism, its core editorial themes, and the yearly News Game Plan.
• Models the standard of excellence expected of the desk by contributing consistently to its daily, weekly, and long-form output.
• Product & Newsletter Delivery: Directly produces, oversees, and distributes critical digital newsletter products to strict deadlines: Money Cents; Business Maverick; and After the Bell.
• Content Strategy & Curation: Develops and implements editorial strategies that align with publication goals, audience interests, and industry trends.
• Produces original, investigative and enterprising journalism
• Identifies, prioritises, and approves news topics, features, deep-dives and investigations, ensuring comprehensive coverage across essential business areas like state owned enterprises, finance, industry developments, economic trends, and innovations.
• Diary & News Flow Management: Structurally manages diaries and news flow to guarantee a steady copy flow while strategically allowing writers sufficient time to execute longer, deep-dive articles, projects and investigations.
• Conducts a weekly team meeting with reporters to plan upcoming stories for online and DM168
• Holds monthly one-on-one check-in meetings with reporters
• Produces a monthly section report to be presented to the EIC in a monthly meeting that tracks the vital statistics of the section, tracks the fulfilment of goals as identified in the yearly game plan.
• Conducts twice yearly formal performance reviews with individual team members, identifying areas of excellence, potential growth and training opportunities.
• Contributor & Columnist Workflows: Coordinates seamlessly with freelancers, contributors, and guest writers, ensuring all outsourced content rigorously meets editorial standards and adheres to specific regular contributor deadlines.
• Editing, Accuracy & Quality Control: Edits articles thoroughly for clarity, grammar, spelling, and strict adherence to Daily Maverick’s style.
• Fact-checks content, verifies sources, and validates data accuracy to systematically maintain 100% credibility and adherence to the SA Press Code.
• Proactively addresses any ethical issues or conflicts of interest.
• Stakeholder Collaboration & Integration: Operates effectively within an internal ecosystem, collaborating with Visual (Photodesk) or Multimedia (Maverick Studios) for video/visual pitches, Sub-Editors for final copy polishing, Digital/Tech and Audience Engagement teams for multi-platform delivery, and Maverick Growth/Commercial teams to track story impact data and protect financial sustainability.
• Audience-Centric Curation: Ensures all business reporting serves targeted reader segments and fulfills specific user needs, aligning coverage directly with core editorial themes: Sustaining Our World, Learning and Job Creation, Safety and Belonging, and Age of Accountability.