For Jennifer Ablan, Coming Home Was a “Full Circle Move”
Hawaii Business’ new editor in chief had an impressive career in the national business media. Now she’s back in Hawai‘i, in her dream job.
While growing up in Kalihi and attending Radford High School, Jennifer Ablan had a plan: “I wanted to be Lois Lane.” That meant going to New York City – a real-life version of Lane’s Metropolis – and being a reporter covering the city’s biggest stories.
And that’s what she’s done for 28 years, including reporting on some of the most powerful people and companies in business and finance: Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway; huge investment asset management companies like PIMCO, DoubleLine Capital and Bridgewater Associates; and financial powerhouses like Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Vanguard, BlackRock and Fisher Investments.
And she’s connected and tenacious, having landed coveted, hard-to-get interviews with power players like Jeffrey Gundlach, Mellody Hobson, David Einhorn, Jim Chanos, Cathie Wood and Greg Jensen.
Jennifer took over as editor in chief of Hawaii Business Magazine in May, while I, after 16 years in the role, have moved into a part-time job as senior editor. I am certain that Jennifer will preserve the best of Hawaii Business while bringing new energy and great ideas into every part of our work: print, online, in our newsletters and events, and in fresh, exciting initiatives. The magazine is in excellent hands.
“I have big shoes to fill but I know Steve Petranik will always be one call away,” she says.
HOLDING THE POWERFUL ACCOUNTABLE
Jennifer comes to the role with almost three decades of reporting and editing experience in New York City. She spent over a decade at Reuters, where she was U.S. investments editor and co-host of the Reuters Global Investment Summits before taking the helm as editor in chief and chief content officer at Pensions & Investments. She also spent over five years at Barron’s magazine and was U.S. assistant managing editor at the Financial Times during the Covid crisis.
Her stories had impact and often drama. “One of the biggest highlights of my career was covering Bill Gross, a co-founder of PIMCO known as the original ‘Bond King.’ When I started business journalism, I was asked to cover what’s known as junk bonds and other bonds – not the sexiest thing – and that was the best career move, because it was not only complex but also had all these major characters,” Ablan says.
“Bill Gross was involved in all sorts of controversies. I wrote a long story about the end of his legacy and ended up in the middle of the fighting and arguing between Gross and Mohamed El-Erian, who were PIMCO’s co-chief investment officers.”
One tense but amusing moment happened when Jennifer boldly asked Gross if she could see the evidence for one of Gross’ allegations against El-Erian. Gross replied: “You’re on his side. Great, he’s got you, too, wrapped around his charming right finger.”
Reporting on these powerful Wall Street players taught her a lot. “We all know billionaires really care about their reputation,” she says, and will fiercely protect it, and they get angry when you ask probing questions “because they are used to being in control of their own narrative.”
In one of her great understatements, Jennifer says, “I’m not afraid of doing hard stories.”
HER LUCKIEST MOMENT
In another career highlight, Jennifer was tapped to run the buy side coverage at Reuters. “Buy side coverage is following the money, talking to very big investors and asking them, ‘What are you buying? What are you selling?’ A lot of high-profile investors are loath to tell you what they’re doing with their money, but that became my specialty. I was able to build a network, a Rolodex of sources, who would tell me what they’re buying, what they’re selling, where the money is going, where it’s not going. So I did a lot of networking in person, phone calls, everything under the sun.”
In the luckiest moment of her life, Jennifer avoided being part of history on 9/11. “I was working for Barron’s magazine and had attended the first day of a two-day conference at the World Trade Center. I was supposed to return at 8 a.m. the next day, but I overslept. I was getting ready, and my husband said, ‘Don’t go. Something happened.’ And we watched it unfold on TV.”
I first met Jennifer when my wife, professor Ann Auman, described her as one of her best students in the Journalism Department at UH Mānoa – though Jennifer admits she had so much going on that she was not a perfect student. The extracurriculars included on-the-job learning by writing for Ka Leo O Hawai‘i, the student newspaper, and eventually becoming its editor in chief.
That sounds a lot like my time at university so when Ann recommended Jennifer, I hired her for an entry-level position at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, when I was news editor there. At the time, Jennifer was recovering from bone cancer surgery on her right knee.
“If I were at the World Trade Center, I don’t know how I would run. Everyone ran for their lives” that day, she says. “I came to New York with a very weak knee, and yes, I survived bone cancer. I didn’t have chemotherapy, but I did get a total knee surgery.”
“That was probably one of the reasons I also came to New York. Life is fragile. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. And if I didn’t do it in my 20s, I don’t think I would do it at all. So that was a very big, life-changing experience.”
“IT FEELS LIKE A FULL-CIRCLE MOVE”
I had offered her jobs at Hawaii Business in the past but she turned me down. This time she said yes, partly because of the opportunity to become editor in chief, partly to help care for her parents and partly just to come home to Hawai‘i. Her reasons for coming home parallel those of the people she interviewed for her story in this issue about local professionals returning to Hawai‘i after successful careers on the mainland. (see page 46)
“The world is a chaotic place right now, which is one reason people are coming home. But more importantly, you can have a thriving career in Hawai‘i,” she says.
“It feels like a full-circle move, Steve. To be your heir is a dream come true. To come home as editor in chief of Hawaii Business, the oldest regional business magazine in the United States, is special.”
“I’m a local kid who grew up in Kalihi. There weren’t a lot of women in big roles when I was a child. I am screaming inside with joy and pride because I can build upon what you are giving me. I also wanted to work with Duane, Susan, Brandon and Kent (the leaders of parent company aio and Hawaii Business). It’s the opportunity of a lifetime in my home state.”
Coming home is also about the place you are leaving. I laughed when she described on a video call from New York City how the Big Apple can wear you down.
“Living here is like dog years. I feel like I’m 104 years old.” Her decades there included good times and hard times, like the dot-com bust, 9/11, the Great Recession and the pandemic – all of which she reported on.
Jennifer’s tenure at Hawaii Business will be different from mine but she’ll continue to focus on the big topics that drive life and the economy in Hawai‘i – including the high cost of living and housing and how to create conditions for business success and economic growth in the Islands. She also promises to continue publishing stories and information useful to our readers, their careers and their lives.
“There are a lot of untold stories in Hawai‘i at this moment of great economic and political shifts,” she says. “I want to be right there in the middle of it all.”
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