Thomson Reuters CEO Warns of 'Tough Decisions' Ahead

Thomson Reuters chief executive Tuesday warned employees of "tough decisions" ahead for the media and financial information group, which has already announced 2,500 layoffs since the beginning of the year.

CEO James Smith announced the appointment of a new "chief transformation officer," Neil Masterson, to help direct the shifts planned for the British-Canadian company.

"I know we'll have to take many tough decisions to redirect our efforts toward our future potential," Smith wrote in a letter to the company's 60,000 salaried employees, extracts of which were published on the web site The Baron.

The web site includes former Reuters employees and focuses on company news.

"We need to simplify our business," Smith said in the letter.

"We need to respond to opportunities more quickly. We need to better align resources behind our most promising growth opportunities," he said.

"We need to do a better job of sharing resources across the organization. And we need to attack internal bureaucracy once and for all."

Thomson Reuters is the parent company of the Reuters newswire, a competitor of AFP, but the company earns most of its revenues from financial terminals it provides in banks and trading floors and from the distribution of specialized financial and legal information.

The 2,500 job cuts announced in mid-February were in the Financial and Risk division, which oversees the financial terminals.