The Evening Standard’s new editor-in-chief Dylan Jones has hired one of his former GQ colleagues to help with the fee daily newspaper’s “ongoing transformation” into a digital-first brand with a wider audience.
George Chesterton, who has been associate managing editor at The Telegraph since October 2021, has been appointed executive editor at the Evening Standard and will join in September.
Chesterton previously worked with Jones for eight years at British GQ, where he was managing editor and politics editor during Jones’ 22-year stint as editor. Chesterton says on his Linkedin profile he also led “change and transformation” for the men’s lifestyle brand.
Jones said: “George is a brilliant journalist and editor and joins the Standard at an exciting moment in its history, and will help build the next iteration of London’s premium publishing brand.”
Jones became the first permanent Evening Standard editor since October 2021 when he began in the role on 5 June. He said in a diary reflecting on his first week for the New Statesman: “The Evening Standard is one of the city’s great institutions. Sure, the protracted nature of lockdown didn’t help the business much, but we’re developing a new business model that doesn’t rely so much on commuters, and it’s been exhilarating teasing out ways in which we can genuinely thrive. It’s going to be a fascinating autumn.”
Chesterton, who started his career at The Independent and then went to The Guardian as a production editor, said he was “looking forward to contributing to the future of this great title, from commissioning and writing to helping it in the next stage of its evolution as a quality publisher with huge influence in London and beyond”.
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