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'{{Short description|American public relations strategist and financial journalist}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] --> | name = Zachery "Zach" Kouwe | image = | imagesize = | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birthdate and age|1978|3|17|mf=yes}} | birth_place = [[Geneva, New York]], U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Financial public relations strategist<br>Journalist | website = {{URL|https://www.zacherykouwe.com}} }} '''Zachery "Zach" Kouwe''' (born March 17, 1978) is a communications strategist and former financial journalist. He is known for serving as a media and strategic communications advisor to corporations and financial firms including [[activist shareholder]]s and institutional investors and has worked as an advisor for the corporate whistleblower attorney [[Jordan A. Thomas]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.irmagazine.com/articles/activism/20650/how-take-action-against-activists/|title=IR Magazine {{!}} Guide: how to take action against activist investors|website=www.irmagazine.com|access-date=2016-08-29}}</ref><ref>{{Cite press release |last=LLP |first=Labaton Sucharow |title=Labaton Sucharow Whistleblowers Tipped SEC About Bank of America's Multi-Billion Dollar Securities Violations |url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/labaton-sucharow-whistleblowers-tipped-sec-about-bank-of-americas-multi-billion-dollar-securities-violations-300289399.html |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=www.prnewswire.com |language=en}}</ref> Prior to public relations, he wrote extensively about [[Wall Street]], [[private equity]], [[hedge funds]] and [[white-collar crime]], most recently for ''[[The New York Times]].'' He served as a researcher for [[Joe Nocera]] and [[Bethany McLean]] on their book ''[[All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis]]''.<ref name="Official">{{official website|http://www.zacherykouwe.com}}</ref> ==Early life and education== Kouwe was raised in [[Tampa, Florida]] and graduated in 2000 from [[Hamilton College (New York)|Hamilton College]].<ref name="Official"/> He earned an M.A. in journalism from the [[University of Colorado at Boulder]]. ==Career== ===Journalism=== Kouwe began his journalism career in 2000 as a reporter for the trade publication ''Wall Street Letter'', published by Institutional Investor. In 2002, Kouwe edited Institutional Investor's Spring ETF Report, a publication on the burgeoning market for [[exchange-traded fund]]s. He joined the ''Times'' in October 2008, aged 30, becoming one of the newspaper's last hires before it announced a 5% cut in wages and a 10% reduction in its newsroom staff.<ref name="5%">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/mar/26/new-york-times-pay-cuts|title=New York Times set to impose 5% pay cut on all staff|last=Clark|first=Andrew|date=March 26, 2009|work=The Guardian|access-date=July 30, 2011|location=New York}}</ref> At the ''Times'', Kouwe wrote for the [[Andrew Ross Sorkin#DealBook|DealBook]] blog, which covers [[mergers and acquisitions]], [[hedge funds]] and [[private equity]]. He also wrote articles for the business section.<ref name="NYT01"/> Before joining the ''Times'', Kouwe was a business reporter at the ''[[New York Post]]'' for three years. Prior to joining ''The Post'', he worked for the [[Dow Jones & Company|Dow Jones]] Newswires covering the private equity industry. He also worked as an intern for the ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'' and ''[[The Denver Post]]'' while earning a master's degree at the [[University of Colorado at Boulder]]'s School of Journalism & Mass Communication.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} ===News articles=== Kouwe wrote, co-wrote or contributed to more than 1,600 articles and blog posts for the ''Times'' and authored 969 articles for ''The Post''. He gained the attention of the financial journalism community by being the first to report that then New York Stock Exchange CEO John Thain had accepted a job to become the new head of Merrill Lynch in the midst of the [[global financial crisis]].<ref name="DB">{{cite web|url=http://dealbreaker.com/2007/11/merrill-lynch-taps-thainnew-york-post-reports-announcement-will-come-this-afternoon/|title=Merrill Lynch Taps Thain|last=Carney|first=John|date=November 14, 2007|work=Dealbreaker.com|access-date=July 26, 2011}}</ref> At the ''Times'', a writing team that included Kouwe was a finalist for a [[Gerald Loeb Award]] for their reporting on the [[Bernard L. Madoff]] Ponzi scheme in 2009.<ref>[http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/Documents/areas/adm/loeb/09e11.pdf ''New York Times'' articles upon which the Gerald Loeb Award nomination was based]</ref><ref name="BW">{{cite web|url=http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090513005325&newsLang=en|title=2009 Gerald Loeb Award Finalists Announced by UCLA Anderson School of Management|date=May 13, 2009|work=Businesswire.com|access-date=July 30, 2011}}</ref> He was also the paper's lead reporter {{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} covering the massive insider trading case centered on the [[Galleon Group]] hedge fund and its founder, [[Raj Rajaratnam]].<ref name="Raj">{{cite news|url=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/raj_rajaratnam/index.html?inline=nyt-per|title=Raj Rajaratnam — Galleon Group Founder Convicted in Insider Trading Case|date=May 12, 2011|work=The New York Times|access-date=July 30, 2011|first=Peter|last=Lattman}}</ref> In 2008, he was co-listed, with Peter Lauria, at #62 on the Silicon Alley 100, compiled by the web site SiliconAlleyInsider.com, for their reporting on Microsoft's failed takeover of Yahoo! in 2008.<ref name="SA100">{{cite web|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/sa100/2008/peter-lauria-zachery-kouwe|title=SA100: Peter Lauria and Zachery Kouwe|date=October 30, 2008|work=Business Insider|access-date=July 26, 2011}}</ref> Kouwe also wrote a widely read front page article in the ''Times'' about the progress of the federal government's [[Troubled Asset Relief Program]] and another about a little-known insurance company, named the Customer Asset Protection Corp. (CAPCO), owned by several Wall Street firms.<ref name="Bailout">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/business/economy/31taxpayer.html?_r=2&hp|title=As Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees a Profit |last=Kouwe|first=Zachery|date=August 30, 2009|work=The New York Times|access-date=July 30, 2011}}</ref><ref name="Capco">{{cite news|url=http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/07/31/capco-wtf/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090803102556/http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/07/31/capco-wtf/|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 3, 2009|title=Capco: WTF?|last=Salmon|first=Felix|date=July 31, 2009|work=Reuters.com (blog)|access-date=July 30, 2011}}</ref> ===Controversy=== In February 2010 Kouwe was suspended from ''The New York Times'' after being accused of plagiarizing portions of an article. He resigned from his position shortly thereafter after admitting he made inadvertent mistakes in writing a blog post. The wrongdoing was originally brought to the attention of ''The Times'' on February 12 by [[Robert James Thomson|Robert Thomson]], managing editor of rival ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', stating that portions of an article written by Kouwe and published on February 5 "were identical or nearly identical to a Journal article published online hours before...".<ref name="NYT01">[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/media/17times.html?partner=rss&emc=rss "Times Business Reporter Accused of Plagiarism Is Said to Resign"], nytimes.com, February 17, 2010; retrieved April 27, 2015.</ref> Before Kouwe's resignation was announced, ''[[The Guardian]]'' had obtained and posted online a copy of Thomson's letter to ''The Times''.<ref name="Letter">{{cite news|url=http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Media/documents/2010/02/16/NewYorkTimesArticle.pdf|title=Robert Thomson's letter to Bill Keller|date=February 12, 2010|access-date=July 20, 2011|location=London|work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/feb/16/new-york-times-plagiarism "Read the Wall Street Journal letter accusing New York Times of plagiarism"] Posted by Stephen Brook on the Greenslade Blog, ''guardian.co.uk'', February 16, 2010; retrieved 2010-02-18.</ref> The ''Times'''s Editor's Note on Kouwe's resignation specified that the original evidence referenced an article about "an asset freeze for members of [[Bernard L. Madoff]]’s family." The note further described the wrongdoing as "[[Appropriation of knowledge|appropriat[ing]]] wording and passages published by other news organizations ... without attribution or acknowledgment." The term "plagiarism" was not used in the correction.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/pageoneplus/corrections.html?scp=1&sq=editor%27s%20note&st=Search Corrections: Editor's Note] February 14, 2010 (in print 2010-02-15). Retrieved 2010-02-18.</ref> The ''Times'' never officially corrected any other articles that Kouwe wrote.<ref name="NYTPublicEditor">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07pubed.html|title=The Public Editor - Journalistic Shoplifting|last=Hoyt|first=Clark|date=March 6, 2010|work=The New York Times|access-date=July 20, 2011}}</ref> Responding to the accusations in ''[[The New York Observer]]'', Kouwe was quoted describing the action as inadvertent. "I was as surprised as anyone that this was occurring," he said of the revelations. He explained that his high volume of work ("7,000 words every week") and particular researching and writing style conducted "[i]n the essence of speed" were what led to the occurrences.<ref name="Observer">[https://web.archive.org/web/20100218141212/http://www.observer.com/2010/media/accidental-plagiarist "The Accidental Plagiarist"] by John Koblin, ''The New York Observer'', February 16, 2010; retrieved 2010-02-18.</ref> ''Times<nowiki>'</nowiki>'' standards editor Philip Corbett stated that most of what Kouwe lifted was "pretty banal stuff", like background material.<ref name="NYTPublicEditor"/> Bill Reader, an assistant professor of at the [[E.W. Scripps School of Journalism]], who teaches a class on media ethics, was cited in an article saying Kouwe's resignation was extreme and his explanation was believable.<ref>[http://www.cision.com/us/2010/02/copy-paste-world/ "Inadvertent Plagiarism in a Copy and Paste World]," by Katrina M Mendolera, Cision, Feb. 19, 2010; Retrieved 2016-04-17.</ref> ===Public relations=== Kouwe became a financial public relations executive in 2011.<ref>[http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/article/kouwe-promoted-director-dukas-public-relations "Kouwe Promoted to Director at Dukas Public Relations"] (February 6, 2013) Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog; retrieved April 3, 2015.</ref> He has become known for representing prominent [[activist investor]]s as well as asset management firms.<ref>Roach, Garnet (March 9, 2015) "[http://www.irmagazine.com/articles/proxy-voting-annual-meetings/20650/how-take-action-against-activists/ Guide: How to Take Action Against Activist Investors"], IRMagazine.com; retrieved April 3, 2015.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=On the Move: Dukas Linden PR Ups Kouwe, Dhond to EVP|url=https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/16996/2021-10-27/move-dukas-linden-pr-ups-kouwe-dhond-evp.html|access-date=2021-11-01|website=O'Dwyers PR}}</ref> He was named as the "Top 15 finance PR leaders to follow on Twitter in 2022" by Muck Rack. <ref>{{Cite news |last=Sugarman |first=Lindsay |date=August 11, 2022 |title=Top 15 finance PR leaders to follow on Twitter in 2022 |url=https://muckrack.com/blog/2022/08/11/finance-pr-leaders-to-follow-on-twitter-2022 |work=Muck Rack}}</ref> ==References== {{Reflist|2}} ==External links== *[https://www.zacherykouwe.com Zachery Kouwe's website] *[https://dealbook.nytimes.com/author/zachery-kouwe/ Zachery Kouwe's articles in ''New York Times'' DealBook] *[https://nypost.com/author/zachery-kouwe/ Zachery Kouwe's article's in ''The New York Post''] {{authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Kouwe, Zachery}} [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:American male journalists]] [[Category:New York Post people]] [[Category:The New York Times journalists]] [[Category:1978 births]] [[Category:American business and financial journalists]] [[Category:Hamilton College (New York) alumni]] [[Category:Writers from Tampa, Florida]]'