Raju Narisetti, our very own Hyderabadi, a Nizam College Economics graduate, has scaled great heights of journalism to manage the affairs of The Washington Post as its Managing Editor. He is the second Indian to be managing an American newspaper.

Born on June 26, 1966, Raju Narisetti, armed with a management degree from Institute of Rural Management, Anand, (IRMA), began his career as a regional sales manager at AP Dairy, manufacturers of Vijaya brand of dairy products. But after two years into the job, Narisetti realised that this was not his cup of tea and his passion lay in journalism. Son of journalist Innaiah Narisetti and English professor Venigalla Komala, Narisetti grew up with newspapers and books. As a child, he wrote letters on current political issues to newspapers, which created his roadmap to journalism. 

To gain grounding in journalism, in the late 1980s, Narisetti earned a Post Graduate diploma from The Times School of Journalism (TSJ). After finishing the course, he took up a job with The Economic Times and after working for a year, sought admission into Indiana University. Narisetti said that he preferred studying in the US as it was not worthy to study at the Indian universities. He was of the view that most of the faculty didn’t know the function of a newspaper.

The Washington Post managing editor paid rich tributes to David Pritchard, Indiana University professor, who taught him the value of rigour and ethics in journalism. He said that during his course, the University made him think. Among the teachers, he remembered were English school teacher, Anandhi Natarajan, and TSJ journalism teacher, Thomas Oommen.

Narisetti took over the reins of the managing editor of The Washington Post in January 2009. As Managing Editor, Narisetti looks after all content at Washingtonpost.com; the Post’s Interactivity team; the Post’s Presentation Team  that includes photo, graphics, design, multimedia, its print Features sections—Weekend, Travel, BookWorld, Food, and the Post Magazine.
The Hyderbabadi has also been responsible in the redesigning of the paper and integrating its print and online operations and also rolling out of the Post’s new internal publishing system, Eidos Methode, by the end of this year. Narisetti was happy when the sections headed by him - Post Magazine (Gene Weingarten) and Style (Sarah Kaufman), were honoured with the Pulitzer Prizes in April this year. 

Relinquishing all his responsibilities in print section, Narisetti took over all digital content initiatives at the Washington Post, including mobile and product, Post’s Universal News Desk staff, in May. His other responsibilities include content in the newly launched Post’s new conferences business, Washington Post Live and Capital Business.

Prior to his appointment at The Washington Post, Narisetti was founding editor of Mint, Business newspaper from publishers of Hindustan Times, from 2006-2008. Until December 2008, Narisetti was the Editor of Mint and was also the Editorial Advisory Director for HT Media till June last year.

In 2007, Narisetti was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.  The Post editor is a life member of South Asian Journalists Association and on the board of the World Editors Forum of IFRA/World Association of Newspapers. Narisetti got recognition after taking over as editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe and deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal in the US.

Narisetti gives his real journalism grounding to his first full-time job with Dayton Daily News in US.

Blessed with two daughters, Leila (8) and Zola (4), Narisetti catches up with his wife Kim and family whenever he can. “With both print and online responsibilities, and with tools like Blackberry, it has morphed into a near 24-hour responsibility which I immensely enjoy,” Narisetti said.  

A busy man like Narisetti follows a Survival Guide. His survival mantra is:

• Delegate work
• Use e-mail judiciously instead of meeting in person
• Be more productive at a meeting, multi-tasking is the need of the hour
• Meetings must not last more than 45 minutes
• Walk over to the person you want to meet so that you can end the meeting
• Set fixed time for the meetings
• Do it over lunch or breakfast so that time is saved
• Follow up the meeting by e-mail rather than by meetings
• Clarify all doubts