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A BridgeTower to the future

On July 31, Virginia Business turned the page on a new chapter in our 38-year history as the magazine became part of the BridgeTower Media family of companies.

Headquartered in neighboring North Carolina, our new parent company is a portfolio company of Los Angeles private equity firm Transom Capital Group. BridgeTower owns 40-plus B2B media and research brands, including Virginia Lawyers Weekly and Best Companies Group, our partner for the annual Best Places to Work in Virginia awards program.

“It’s great to be able to add the core business audience in the nation’s best state for business to our growing portfolio,” BridgeTower Media President and CEO Hal Cohen said in a statement announcing the acquisition. “We see an opportunity to accelerate the growth of Virginia Business — and of business in Virginia — by leveraging the power of BridgeTower Media’s audience platform and best-in-class capabilities. We look forward to delivering even more value to readers and advertisers in the years ahead.”

Virginia Business’ former owner and publisher, Bernie Niemeier, sold the magazine to BridgeTower, taking a well-earned retirement following a business career that spanned six decades. Previously an executive for Media General, the now-defunct media company that founded Virginia Business in 1986 as the Old Dominion’s only statewide business publication, Bernie became the magazine’s publisher in 2007, purchased the business from Media General in 2009 and became its sole owner in 2017.

A 2018 Virginia Communications Hall of Fame inductee, Bernie was a well-known mainstay of the state’s business community and frequently could be seen representing the magazine at events across the commonwealth. During his 17-year tenure as Virginia Business’s publisher, the magazine introduced annual products like our Big Book issue and the Maritime Guide.

In a statement about the sale, Bernie said, “Hal and the BridgeTower Media team demonstrate again and again that they know exactly how to help media properties thrive in today’s digital world. I made this decision thoughtfully, and I know my team is in good hands. I look forward to seeing Virginia Business grow even further as it continues to serve the nation’s best state for business.”

As for what this all means for you, our readers, in the coming weeks you’ll see a revamped Virginia Business website and newly redesigned newsletters. Next year, we’ll begin launching new events and awards programs, while maintaining popular ones like Women in Leadership, Virginia’s Top Doctors and Best Places to Work. For our advertisers, we will be offering new opportunities to better help you reach your customers, and we’ll also be able to leverage BridgeTower’s national family of publications so you can put your message in front of far larger audiences.

And of course we will continue to deliver compelling, timely and informative coverage of Virginia’s business community to you through our daily news website, our monthly issues and annual special publications like the Virginia 500.

* * * *

Speaking of the Virginia 500, polybagged with this issue you’ll find the fifth annual edition of this annual special publication featuring our exclusive list of Virginia’s top 500 leaders in business, higher education, nonprofits, government and politics.

Divided into 21 categories, including a Living Legends section recognizing lifetime achievement, this year’s Virginia 500 features a new breakout section for the insurance industry, which has been separated from banking and finance.

Starting with the first edition in 2020, the Virginia 500 instantly became our most popular product with readers and advertisers in the magazine’s history.

With a word count roughly equal to four of our regular monthly issues, the Virginia 500 is a labor of love — emphasis on labor — for our editorial staff. We began work in earnest on the 500 in April, and five months later, through the hard work of a team of 16 writers and editors plus production staff, it’s now available on your device screens and in your mailbox.

Take your time to browse through our fascinating mini profiles of Virginia’s 500 most powerful and successful executives. We’re confident that you’ll come away not only with some useful business intelligence, but with a far better sense of the movers and shakers behind Virginia’s top industries.

Crown jewels

The Port of Virginia and its surrounding maritime community are the crown jewels of economic development in Virginia. Fewer than half of U.S. states have any coastline at all, not to mention the combined industrial, commercial and military presence that makes Hampton Roads an enduring source of growth for the commonwealth and the nation.

Consistent investment and state-owned facilities ensure that every dollar spent goes toward the mission of growing Virginia’s import and export capabilities. Key investments are being allocated toward efficiency and sustainability to ensure future growth. Dominion Energy Inc.’s developing offshore wind farm is driving ancillary supply chain development at Lambert’s Point with Fairwinds Landing. Workers are now training for new offshore wind construction and maintenance jobs.

Trucking fleets at Estes Express Lines and other firms are moving toward electric vehicles. The Port of Virginia has set a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. As early as next year, the majority of the port’s energy consumption will come from renewable sources. These transformative environmental investments are further building Virginia’s long-established leadership position in the maritime and logistics industries.

Virginia’s maritime community is bigger than Hampton Roads, though — it’s statewide. Distribution centers across Southern Virginia on U.S. 460 and up and down the Shenandoah Valley on Interstate 81 serve as waypoints for cargo that moves across the entire U.S. The Virginia Inland Port facility in Front Royal serves as a transition point for cargo containers from rail to truck transportation. A proposed second inland port in Southwest Virginia would do the same. The Port of Virginia also manages the Richmond Marine Terminal.

Our hope is that the 2023 Virginia Maritime Guide will provide you with a wealth of information on each of these investments, opportunities, challenges and more. To compile this guide, we worked closely with the Virginia Maritime Association and the Port of Virginia. We thank them for their assistance and look forward to the maritime industry’s ongoing success in the commonwealth.

Bernie Niemeier
President & Publisher
Virginia Business

A library of business intelligence

Admittedly, many of my personal business memories start from more than just a short while ago — pre-internet days to say the least. Now that everything is online, we don’t hear much about libraries anymore, except maybe in the case of public schools. Politics aside, I’m delighted people are still interested in reading words on a page, regardless of topic or platform.

When it comes to business libraries, I spent many of my early career days as a graduate student and business researcher gleaning information from reference books.

When media companies were still flush with money, they had in-house research departments replete with voluminous business libraries. Ours had dark wood shelves arranged around a large reading table. Stocking the shelves were decades of annual publications on pertinent topics like nationwide newspaper circulation, ad rates for newspapers, television and radio markets, and ZIP code demographics for the entire U.S. Even more obscure were reverse telephone directories, where you could look up a phone number and find a corresponding name and street address for each listing.

In the days before everything became searchable, downloadable, sliceable and diceable, corporate libraries such as these were where business information was warehoused, waiting to be turned into business intelligence.

After the internet became ubiquitous, however, these company libraries were superseded by desktop computers in every office, laptops in every briefcase and smartphones in every pocket.

Looking at the immediate horizon, artificial intelligence programs such as ChatGPT are predicted to provide all life’s answers. Think of it as big data and technology replacing big libraries and thoughtful research.

Looking back, there was something especially nice about cozying up in a physical library with all that data in one place, copying numbers down on a yellow pad and using a calculator. This is a discipline that’s perhaps lost in the eternal now of today’s copy-and-paste world. The ability to instantly recalculate until an acceptable answer appears doesn’t really replace the innate talent of defining the right research questions at the outset. There is absolutely a difference between data and intelligence.

For me, all of this comes to mind each year when Virginia Business publishes our March issue, The Big Book.

Back during the halcyon days of physical business libraries in the 1980s and 1990s, our March issue served up the State of the State, reporting on the commonwealth’s economy across several industries. (Suffice it to say that we’ve long served as a source for business intelligence.)

In 2013, though, we replaced that annual State of the State report with The Big Book, expanding the issue to include roughly 50 different lists and charts with vital business statistics all in one place — creating an annual reference library of sorts for Virginia businesses.

And while Virginia Business has not yet moved into the realm of artificial intelligence, we have moved into e-commerce. Some of the key lists in this issue are available for purchase at virginiabusiness.com as downloadable spreadsheets in expanded formats beyond what’s included in the print version.

Whether digitized and downloaded or delivered as a paper magazine to your mailbox, think of us as your personal corporate library. Regardless of the platform, context is important, and that’s why we are especially proud to still be bringing you words on a page after 37 years. Enjoy!  

Business is better

Over the past several months, there’s been a bit of a buzz about the direction of the global economy. In conversation, many business leaders will express deep concerns about inflation and the onset of recession. Yet, when asked about their financial performance, most all of them say, “Business is going great!”

Within these conversations lies an obvious disconnect between economic expectations and individual business results. Why is it that we think things are getting worse when they’re actually getting better? Perhaps it’s the long-overheated stock market, coupled with an instinctual bit of defensive self-preservation.

Much of what one reads about the economy or corporate earnings is grounded in comparisons with year-over-year results. However, in my experience, last year’s numbers say equally as much about last year as they do about this one. What kind of year was last year? Was it great? Or, at best, was it just a rebuilding year from an underperforming baseline of pandemic conditions?

For the most part, reports of price gouging and runaway corporate profits are overstated. To be certain, inflationary pressures are leading to higher prices, but simply comparing this year’s prices with the previous year’s vastly oversimplifies the conversation.

Bottom-line improvements are a combination of both price and volume variances. After coming through two-and-a-half years of a pandemic-induced recession with severe supply chain disruptions, most businesses are just getting back to normal or what’s often called “the new normal” of sales volume. It’s been a while since supply and demand were actually anywhere near equilibrium.

At the same time, most companies are continuing to benefit from pandemic-induced cost-reduction measures. It’s no wonder that inflationary price increases are falling quickly to the bottom line. Simply put, business is better.

A couple of quarters of economic contraction with no true recession, followed by a better quarter. A couple of months of rising prices, followed by slower increases. Near full employment, resulting in difficulty in recruiting and hiring. All the while, profits for many companies are higher. Compared with the outlook a couple years ago, we should definitely be grateful for the current economic conditions.

Meanwhile, along with the new normal is what one might call the “new networking.” Almost three years of Zooming has left many of us Zoomed out. Fortunately, in-person business events are starting to make a comeback — it’s just a bit different now. After a long hiatus from in-person networking, the biggest difference is that there are a lot of new faces in the crowd. Many of the people that used to attend nearly every business event seem to have retired, changed jobs or otherwise moved on during the pandemic.

New faces are a good thing. As we reset and restart in 2023, there’s a whole new generation coming up through the workforce. Think about the theory of “weak networking” — essentially this means the more people you meet who are less tightly connected to those you already know, the more likely they are to lead you to an entirely new set of business prospects. With that in mind, you can expand your network and prospects with our 100 People to Meet in 2023 feature, which contains some new and interesting people you should get to know better.

We’re also proud this month to feature Jim McGlothlin as our 2022 Virginia Business Person of the Year. (Read December 2022 cover story.) McGlothlin’s business acumen, accomplishments and philanthropy are legendary. They are the stuff that great stories are made of, making him exactly the kind of person you’d like to meet.

As 2022 draws to a close, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to thank all our readers and advertisers for the outsized role each of you plays in the economic success of the commonwealth. Because of you, business is better for all of us!  

2022 Virginia 500: The power of leadership

Power is one of those things that can sound great until you have it. It’s a be-careful-what-you-ask-for kind of thing. Power without leadership often goes awry, leading to unfortunate outcomes. The kind of power that works well requires leadership, good stewardship and a genuine concern for the well-being of an entire team.

Many of us can remember working hard to rise through the ranks of large companies. There were leaders who helped — not just because they had they power to do so, but because of a true interest in the work, its potential and the collective ability to grow as an organization.

Conversely, particularly on rungs closer to the top of the corporate ladder, one might find some who are more self-interested. Maintaining or increasing personal power becomes their objective. That’s power without leadership. Unchecked, such toxic behaviors lead to cultural and organizational decline. Teams can be built, but they can also be lost. Sadly enough, it’s easy to know this when you see it. But internal politics are hard to undo, one common rationalization being that this is just how the world works. Then again, hindsight does tend to be 20/20.

Properly executed, power is a handmaiden to leadership. Real leaders set values and direction but empower those below them — not just to get the job done, but also to demonstrate shared organizational values, unlock creativity and generate new ideas from the people who are closest to customers and the tasks at hand.

True leaders maintain a focus on culture and values that lead the organization forward in good times and bad. That’s the sustainable power of good leadership in action.

The third annual edition of the Virginia 500 again features profiles of the top leaders from across the commonwealth. Thanks to the success of our first two issues, we’ve been able to improve the layout and design to make this an even more reader-friendly, must-have resource.

This is a list of the most powerful Virginians. And in almost every instance, you will find these are leaders who have done it right. We thank them for providing the vision and leadership that makes Virginia a great place to do business. Enjoy!

Higher values

About 30 years ago, I was a volunteer for a local group of marketing professionals that was launching its Marketer of the Year awards. Publicity was needed. Working in marketing at the local paper, the task fell to me to pitch the event to the newsroom.

In those days, the news business was fairly balkanized; this was one of my first trips to meet an editor. My errand was completely unsuccessful, being curtly told that the newspaper wouldn’t cover the event because they didn’t write that kind of chicken-dinner news.

In those days, owning a newspaper press was almost like printing cash. My, how that’s changed.

A few years later, moving up to a corporate role at the newspaper’s publicly traded parent company, I organized data on its largest customers across all markets. It was revealing to me that the company’s corporate executives had no information on their biggest revenue relationships, nor did they really seem to care. Not surprisingly, that company no longer exists.

Customers matter. Values matter. Organizations generally invest in — and therefore get more of — the things they value. One of the best ways to know what a company values is simple: Instead of just listening to what executives say, look at their financial statements to see where they spend money. If they claim to believe in people but don’t back that up with market-leading compensation, do they really believe in people? If they say they believe in brands but don’t invest in advertising, do they believe in brands? If they claim to believe in customers but don’t know them, just what are their values?

Take a moment to think about values — not just profit, but higher values. Profit is definitely a matter of staying in the game. It may excite shareholders, but it rarely excites employees or customers. Their own bottom lines are more important to them than yours.

Just what are higher values? What about public health? What about democracy? What about truth and facts? What about transparency, diversity and inclusion? Higher values are more than just personal pocketbook issues.

When it comes to building enterprise net worth, higher values can make more difference than anything else. Profit is the price to stay in the game, but it is not a goal that drives growth or sustainability. Profit and higher values aren’t either/or propositions. You can have both. You can have it all. Arguably, you can’t have one without the other. Higher values will attract more customers and will help keep better customers.

Much like perfection, complexity is an enemy of progress. At Virginia Business, we try to keep things simple. Three things are important: First, regardless of your job, you must be interested in business as a topic. Secondly, the magazine keeps its focus on where we have an opportunity to be world class: business journalism. Third, we have one simple measure of success: revenue growth.

With the right people on board, we can do all three of these things, manage our expenses and put money back into things we care about. That’s a simple formula for success. We like keeping things simple.

Our higher values? Leadership, integrity, balance, respect and success. Those things are pretty much what Virginia Business strives to do every day. When that works, profit takes care of itself.

Every company is different. If certain values don’t resonate with your organization, which ones do? It‘s far better to be known by what you are for than it is to be defined by what you are against.

That’s what leadership is all about.