ROME - The Italian journalist Alessandra Galloni is to become the first female editor-in-chief of Reuters when the global news agency's current head, Stephen J. Adler, retires this month.

  Galloni, who is from Rome, graduated from Harvard in 1995, and went on to do a masters at the London School of Economics. She worked for the Wall Street Journal for 13 years, as a correspondent in Rome, Paris and London, before joining Reuters in 2013.

  In 2004 she was named Business Journalist of the Year by the Overseas Press Club, namely for her coverage of the Parmalat financial scandal.

  Galloni, who speaks four languages, will lead Reuters' worldwide staff of 2,450 journalists from the end of April.

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