The Associated Press on Wednesday named Daisy Veerasingham as its agency’s president and CEO,  setting her up to replace the retiring Gary Pruitt at the beginning of next year.

Ms. Veerasingham has been Associated Press’s chief revenue officer since 2019, overseeing the news cooperative's sales, product, marketing and customer operations globally. Before that, she served as head of global sales.

Veerasingham, 51, will  be tasked with continuing to diversify income sources. The AP, caught in the same financial vise as most of the media industry, saw its revenue drop to $467 million in 2020, down more than 25% in a decade. She  is a first-generation Briton of Sri Lankan descent. Her appointment speaks to the changing portrait of the AP, where 40% of the company’s revenue, double what it was 15 years ago, is now generated outside of the United States.

Veerasingham said she is committed to maintain the Associate Press as a source of fact-based, nonpartisan journalism, and to fight for freedom of the press and access to information. The AP produces roughly 2,000 news stories, 3,000 photos and 200 videos every day, reaching more than half the world’s population. “These are values that are core to the AP since its founding 175 years ago,” she said in an interview.

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