Tom Harper has been headhunted as Investigations Reporter from the Mail on Sunday, where he won the British Press Awards 2009 Young Journalist of the Year. Previously he worked at The Sunday Telegraph.
Richard Porritt, currently deputy news editor of Mailonline, has been recruited as Executive News Editor. Previously he was Night Editor at Press Association, Investigations Editor at the Huddersfield Daily Examiner and reporter at the South London Press.
Jack Lefley, currently Executive News Editor at the Standard, has been promoted to Deputy News Editor and Bo Wilson, currently Assistant News Editor, has been promoted to Overnight News Editor.
Since the decision to go free, readership has risen by 173 per cent and the number of Londoners reading the Standard is now pushing towards the two million mark, claim the publishers.
This year the newspaper has also received a series of industry awards, with judges praising the Standard's "remarkable" turnaround.
The Standard was voted Brand of the Year at the Media Week annual awards, beating the Financial Times, The Sun, YouTube and Spotify. It also won the Grand Prix Gold, awarded to the best media outlet across all award categories.
It has beaten Sky and MailOnline, the Daily Mail's news website, to scoop the Medium of the Year award from Campaign magazine.
Campaign magazine said: "The Evening Standard has managed to pull off moving from paid-for to free without damaging its editorial quality or devaluing the product. In fact, if anything, the reverse is true.
"In a sector that has been stymied by falling circulations and a lack of innovation, the Evening Standard's turnaround is nothing short of remarkable."
Other awards include Britain's foremost philanthropy award, the Beacon Prize, for raising £5 million for the Dispossessed Fund, to tackle poverty.
In October the paper picked up two honours at the 2010 Comment Awards, with Simon Jenkins named Commentariat of the Year and The Londoner's Diary named Best Diary Page.
