A year after launch, leading New Zealand business news service BusinessDesk is pleased to announce three senior appointments and a raft of site improvements.

The fast-growing subscription business and political news and commentary site has also completed a share offer to staff, broadening ownership to include most employees. 

Staff numbers have increased from five in September 2019 to 18, as many of New Zealand’s best and brightest journalists join an organisation committed to quality journalism.

New appointments

  • Award-winning investigative journalist and author Jacques Steenkamp, formerly a news director at Stuff, has been appointed as homepage editor and will be based in the Auckland office overseeing the sub-editing, curation and presentation of the BusinessDesk website homepage. 
  • Jacqueline Freeman is joining the team as director of sales and will be across both advertising and subscription revenue. Jacqueline comes to us with a rich pedigree in all aspects of advertising and marketing, having held senior roles in sales, trading and strategic planning at both APN (NZME) and Stuff. She is also the previous head of media and executive director of advertising agency Ogilvy. Jacqueline will be based in our Auckland office.
  • Daniel Dunkley will be covering the media and marketing sector. Daniel is a British-born business journalist with more than a decade's experience writing for titles including The Sunday Times, Financial News, The Wall Street Journal and Stuff.  
  • BusinessDesk now has a South Island staff presence, headed by senior reporter Paul McBeth who opened a bureau in Queenstown on March 1. 

More for readers

  • BusinessDesk has launched full NZX data on its site. Readers can track markets and individual stocks, with personalised end-of-day market updates in the pipeline.
  • The launch of an iPhone/iPad app, with Android on the way. 
  • Article commenting will be available to full subscribers later this month. 

 BusinessDesk CEO Pattrick Smellie says: “We’ve seen a period of strong growth, both in our subscriber base, which recently hit 10,000 and in audience engagement, so now is the right time to strengthen our editorial and advertising capacity. 

 “We’re delighted to be able to bring three such well-respected and experienced people on board as Jacques, Daniel and Jacqueline, adding to what I believe is New Zealand’s best media team.”