Robert Thomson: profile - Telegraph When he was appointed managing editor of News Corp's flagship US title, the Wall Street Journal, much was made of his apparent similarities with his boss Rupert Murdoch. Both are Australian by birth, US based, married to women of Chinese extraction, have close family relations and share a birthday, March 11. Thompson was born in 1961, Murdoch in 1931. As well as working for Murdoch on the Wall Street Journal in New York and The Times in London, Mr Thomson has spent a significant part of his career at The Financial Times. In the 1990s he headed the FT's push into the US market as editor of its American edition. He was pipped to the post of editor of the FT by Andrew Gowers, only to find himself offered a route back into the Murdoch empire with the editorship of The Times in March 2002. In 2008 he headed back to the US to take up the job of managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. As chief executive of News Corp's publishing arm, Thomson will for the first time be leading a listed company, a new venture for the journalist and editor. The company will control all of News Corp's news titles.