PHOTO
Agri-business writer Sally Rae has been appointed to a new position at Allied Press.
Ms Rae has assumed the role of business and rural editor, taking responsibility for business and rural coverage across all of the company's platforms, including the Otago Daily Times, Southern Rural Life and Central Rural Life newspapers, and ODT Online.
It was the first time in its 158-year history that the ODT has appointed a woman as its business editor, and another first, a woman as its rural editor.
Ms Rae, who will continue to write business and rural news, was excited about the opportunity.
"I am unashamedly passionate about both the rural sector, and telling the stories of innovation and success in the business community."
Brought up on a farm in North Otago, Ms Rae was educated at Waitaki Girls' High School, in Oamaru.
After completing her journalism studies at Aoraki Polytechnic, she joined the Oamaru office of the ODT, where she worked as a reporter from 1995 to 2011.
She then moved into the agri-business role, splitting her time between the ODT's Oamaru and Dunedin offices.
Last year, she won the Alliance Group red meat industry journalism award in the New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists annual awards. The previous year, she won the Rural Women New Zealand journalism award.
She is the author of two books: Gold Dust and Saddle Bags, the story of the Otago Goldfields Cavalcade, and The Snow Farmer, the biography of pioneering Cardrona farmer and entrepreneur John Lee.
Ms Rae can be contacted via email (sally.rae@odt.co.nz) or phone 027529-6040.