Gowers named as next 'Financial Times' editor

Andrew Gowers is to be the next editor of the Financial Times when Richard Lambert's 10 years at the newspaper's helm end in September.

Mr Gowers, 43, editor of the German-language FT Deutschland, has held a variety of posts with the newspaper since joining its foreign desk from Reuters in 1983. He became foreign editor in 1992, deputy editor in 1994 and served as acting editor in 1997 when Mr Lambert moved to New York to spearhead the paper's North American expansion.

He is thought to have seen off internal competition from Robert Thomson, editor of the US edition, and Philip Stephens, columnist and editor of the UK edition. Bill Emmott, editor of The Economist, was also touted as a possible successor. Mr Lambert, 56, is credited with transforming the FT from an arcane, narrowly focused business publication with few readers outside of the City into a global publication with extensive reporting resources and a penchant for producing slick lifestyle magazines. Though the departure was expected, Mr Lambert's role in modernising and reshaping the FT will cast a long shadow over his successor. Sales grew from slightly more than 200,000, primarily in Britain, to a record high of 500,000-plus. The FT has been the fastest-growing British newspaper in recent years and records nearly two-thirds of its sales overseas.

After September, Mr Lambert will work on several FT projects while weighing outside job offers.