John A. Prestbo, Editor and Executive Director,
Chairman, Dow Jones Index Oversight Committee
John Prestbo is editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes. He has responsibility for the exploration of new index ideas, as well as marketing, public relations and analytical research. He also is chairman of the Dow Jones Index Oversight Committee.
In 1964, Mr. Prestbo joined The Wall Street Journal as a food, agriculture and commodities reporter in the Chicago bureau. He moved to New York in 1974 as an editor/writer for the page-one staff, and in 1975 he was named commodity news editor. In 1977, he became an assistant managing editor and bureau chief for the Journal in Cleveland. He was appointed vice president/editorial director of Dow Jones Radio 2 in 1981. He returned to the Journal as markets editor in 1983. He worked on the January 1993 launch of the Dow Jones World Stock Index, and in April 1993 he received the additional title of editor of the Index. In July 1996, the World Stock Index group was renamed Dow Jones Indexes and was made a business unit of Dow Jones & Company.
Mr. Prestbo has co-authored or edited several books over the past 30 years. The most recent was “The Market’s Measure: An Illustrated History of America Told Through the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” published by Dow Jones Indexes in 1999 and “Barron’s Guide to Making Investment Decisions” which he helped to compile and edit in 2006.
Mr. Prestbo has a column, “Indexed Investor,” on the highly regarded business and finance Web site MarketWatch. He has been a regular and guest contributor on various cable television business programs, including CNBC’s “Morning Call” and “Squawk Box,” as well as Fox Business News and Wall Street Journal Online.
Mr. Prestbo won the University of Missouri Award for Distinguished Business Writing in 1967 and the George M. Loeb Achievement Award for Business Writing in 1968. In 2007, he won the William F. Sharpe Indexing Lifetime Achievement Award. That same year, he was honored for his leadership by Dow Jones Indexes during its celebration of 10 years as a separate business unit.
Born in Northwood, N.D., Mr. Prestbo received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He and his wife, Darlene, have a son and a daughter and live in New Jersey.