Welcome Connie Loizos To TechCrunch

TechCrunch thrives on change. And it’s a good thing that it does because we’ve seen plenty of it in recent weeks.

Today, we’re happy to announce more changes — with some familiar folks in new roles and new faces joining our pirate crew.

First, we’d like to welcome Connie Loizos to TechCrunch as our Silicon Valley Editor. Connie comes to us from StrictlyVC, a site, newsletter and conference series (which will continue!) that all of us at TC have grown to admire and enjoy greatly. Previous to StrictlyVC, Connie wrote for a variety of Thomson Reuters publications on private equity and venture capital topics including VC Journal, PE HUB and Reuters.com. Before Reuters, Connie covered VC for the San Jose Mercury news and has also held positions at Down Jones and Time Inc. 1777816-1

We’ve admired her fearless voice, her insightful posts on important topics like the 1099 economy and her interviews like this one with notorious Twitter faver Hunter Walk.

Connie will be covering Silicon Valley funding and VC news with her own unique voice for us here at TechCrunch. We often get asked why we cover funding news at all — especially given that there are times when the amounts or rationale are so divorced from the apparent utility or importance of the companies being funded. The simple answer is that this industry we cover is re-forging the economy as we know it, and to understand that effect fully, you have to follow the money.

The deeper answer is that the motivations and methods of the people funding the tools used to twist and pry the girders of our reality are as important as the tools themselves. A deep, contextually aware picture of what changes tech is having and will have on our society starts at the bottom and bubbles all the way up to the top.

Covering a funding round just to re-print the dollar signs is silly, but covering them intelligently and insightfully as a part of the holistic picture that we’re painting for our readers here at TechCrunch is exactly right. And that’s what Connie is here to help us do for you.

You can follow Connie on Twitter @Cookie, a handle of which I am personally incredibly jealous.

New Roles

In addition to Connie joining us, we’re also introducing some new roles for current staffers that you’re already familiar with.

I’m happy to announce that Greg Kumparak is now an Editor. Greg is an incredibly thoughtful journalist who does more behind the scenes here than he’d ever be comfortable admitting to — so I did it for him. He’s been with TC, off and on, for a long time and understands the culture that makes us unique — and will help us keep that alive in the years to come.

I’m also happy to announce that our long-time contributor in France, Romain Dillet, has also joined us full time and will be reporting on the startup and tech ecosystem in France and Europe. Also baguettes and art and ennui, I suppose.

We’re also formalizing roles for other folks who have been putting forth great efforts in specific areas already.

Ingrid Lunden has been appointed News Editor, and will be taking point on guiding our coverage of breaking stories and original scoops.

Darrell Etherington is our new Features Coordinator and will be helping to prepare and ship feature stories like this piece we published recently on women in VC.

Sarah Perez, who I consider to be the best apps ecosystem reporter in the business, is our new Senior Apps Reporter.

Matt Burns becomes our Operations Editor, working closely with events and editorial teams to make sure none of us show up late or in the wrong place.

And our East Coast reporter, Jordan Crook, is now a Senior Writer. She has done an amazing job pushing forward our reporting on the New York ecosystem; hosting our events, radio show and podcasts; and besting all sucker MCs at karaoke.

That’s all for now — but not all. Stay tuned in the coming days for more on the newnewnewTechCrunch. And thank you for reading.