Eleni Giokos Joins CNN

Back in July I said that Eleni Giokos was the biggest free agent in South African journalism following her departure from Bloomberg when it shut its Bloomberg Africa division.

Now, just a few hours ago, it was announced that Eleni Giokos will be joining CNN as a South African-based business correspondent, focussing on African financial issues. She will be working out of the Johannesburg Bureau. She will also obviously be contributing to shows like African Voices and Marketplace Africa.

Early in her career, Giokos was a reporter-anchor at CNBC Africa before joining the then eNews Channel in a role that was yet to be decided. Initially she did fill in anchoring, mainly as the prime time business anchor and reporting on financial issues before settling on the mid morning slot. Whilst at the then eNews Channel, Giokos covered stories like the World Economic Forum from Davos.

She left the renamed eNCA in October 2013 after being offered a senior position at the newly launched Bloomberg TV Africa, but was left out in the cold when earlier this year Bloomberg shut its African division as part of budget cuts. Since then she has done freelance work for South African news outlets like eNCA and 5FM before finally signing with CNN today.

Eleni is the third major eNCA almni to join CNN in the past year or so, joining the likes of Derek van Dam and Robyn Kriel who joined CNN from the South African news channel.

She joins CNN's ever expanding financial news division, which includes the highly successful cnnmoney.com brand. In addition, she joins an ever expanding African presence by CNN which includes Robyn Kriel in East Africa, David McKenzie in South Africa and Soni Methu throughout the rest of the pan African region.

To announce her signing with CNN, Giokos tweeted, "Beyond excited to announce that I've just joined @cnni," followed by retweets of congratulations throughout the day.

Mike McCarthy, Senior Vice President, Programming, at CNN International, said: “Eleni is an enormously talented and versatile broadcaster.  She has interviewed world leaders, covered major breaking news stories, and presented network feature programmes.  Her appointment underlines our commitment to African stories and African audiences.  We’re delighted to have her here at CNN.”

Her first day on air was actually today at 17:15 with an interview with Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub on Marketplace Africa.

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On May 13th, 2013 Giokos hosted Richard Quest from CNN on her then usual slot on eNCA when Quest was in South Africa. Check out the videos below:







That evening, Giokos also appeared live on Quest Means Business, which was anchored live from CNN's Johannesburg bureau, which will be Giokos' new workplace.