40 YEARS | VIRGINIA BUSINESS

In March 1986, the first issue of Virginia Business was gently wrapped in a baby blanket, cradled in a basket and delivered to its then-owners at the Media General building in Richmond. “We all felt like we had given birth,” recalled Lisa Antonelli Bacon, one of the magazine’s first staff writers. “We were very proud of ourselves and proud of Media General for being willing to take that step.”

Forty years later, the magazine has grown into something its founders could only have hoped for: a statewide news operation with editors working from Hampton Roads to Roanoke, a portfolio of annual issues and awards programs, and a readership spanning every region and industry in the commonwealth.

Virginia Business was established by Richmond-based Media General, a Fortune 500 company that was later dissolved in a $4.6 billion sale to Nexstar Broadcasting Group in 2017. “Our goal was to be the premier business publication in Virginia,” said Jim Bacon, the monthly’s founding editor in 1986 and later its publisher.

‘A big deal’

Virginia Business didn’t want to be mistaken for just another Richmond-focused magazine, despite being headquartered in the capital city. “We all had this idea that we were doing something important; we were doing something that other publications weren’t doing,” Antonelli Bacon said. “We really were just carving it out of stone.”

By 1990, Media General was in the midst of what former Virginia Business owner and publisher Bernie Niemeier — then a Richmond Newspapers Inc. circulation marketing executive — called an “acquisition growth spurt” that lasted into the early 2000s. Among the properties folded into Virginia Business was the Tidewater Virginian, a “spunky little magazine,” in Bacon’s words, whose acquisition brought experienced Hampton Roads writers and salespeople into the fold.

“Virginia Business was a big deal,” said Susan Horton, who spent five years at the Tidewater Virginian before its acquisition and worked as Virginia Business’ sales manager until her 2017 retirement. “Always was a big deal from the get-go as far as the reputation of the magazine.”

The magazine’s willingness to experiment — with special projects, themed issues and new publications — helped it survive and grow over the decades. Robert Powell, Virginia Business’ longest-serving editor, helmed the magazine from 2004 to 2019, overseeing the Big Book, the Virginia Business Person of the Year issue, and special annual issues like Hampton Roads Business. “One of our big aims was to keep track as much as possible with things all over the state and travel the state as much as we could to make sure people knew we were interested in their part of the state,” Powell said.

In 2007, Media General named Niemeier as Virginia Business’ publisher. As the Great Recession squeezed the media conglomerate’s finances, Niemeier partnered with Virginia Capital Partners to buy the magazine from Media General in 2009, later becoming its sole owner in 2017 — a tenure that included the launch of enduring franchises like the Big Book and the Virginia Maritime Guide and that earned him induction into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame in 2018.

By 2019, Powell and long-time Virginia Business Managing Editor Paula Squires retired, ushering in a complete renewal of the magazine’s editorial staff and much of its advertising staff, resulting in a new digitally minded Virginia Business that Niemeier liked to refer to as “VB 3.0.”

Staying on mission

Richard Foster has had a front-row seat to much of that transformation. A Virginia media and communications veteran of nearly 35 years, Foster began writing for Virginia Business as a regular monthly contributor in 2006 and became its editor in May 2019. He now serves as associate publisher and editor of both Virginia Business and its sister publication, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, which also celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

Under Foster’s leadership, Virginia Business has launched a daily news website and two new signature annual issues, the Virginia 500 and StartVirginia, along with high-profile recognition programs including the Virginia C-Suite Awards, Women in Leadership, and Top Projects and Real Estate Deals.

His 20 years working for Virginia Business — fully half the magazine’s 40-year history — have most recently seen the publication’s pandemic-driven shift to a statewide, digital newsroom and its 2024 sale to BridgeTower Media.

“What strikes me most is how much the mission has stayed the same even as everything around it has changed — the tools we use to cover Virginia business, where our staff sits and who owns the company,” Foster said. “We’re still trying to do what Media General set out to do in 1986: Tell readers what’s really happening in every corner of the state’s economy.”

On July 31, 2024, Niemeier sold Virginia Business to BridgeTower Media, a portfolio company of Los Angeles private equity firm Transom Capital Group that owns more than 40 B2B media and research brands nationally, including Virginia Lawyers Weekly and Best Companies Group, the magazine’s longtime partner on the Best Places to Work in Virginia awards.

BridgeTower Media President and CEO Hal Cohen called it a natural extension of the company’s growth strategy. “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,” Cohen said.

The acquisition came on the heels of Virginia being named the best state for business by CNBC for a record sixth time, with more than 47,000 executives relying on the magazine for coverage of Virginia’s economy. Virginia Business’s statewide presence reflects a masthead that also has evolved with the magazine, with Katherine Schulte and Kate Andrews now serving as deputy editors alongside Foster, and Associate Editors Josh Janney and Beth JoJack.

As local newspapers continue to decline in circulation and staff size, Virginia Business has only grown more essential to filling the gap.

“People sometimes take business stories for granted, or they think they’re going to be really boring, but they play such a big part in our lives,” said Veronica Garabelli, a former special projects editor. “Most people spend most of their time at work, so it plays a giant role in all of our lives. Virginia Business is the only publication that’s really dedicated to looking at business in the state at a statewide level.”

Forty years after delivering that first, blanket-wrapped issue, Virginia Business is still chasing the goal set at its outset — to be the definitive source for business news in a commonwealth that continues to nurture and attract businesses and investments of all sizes, from emerging startups to venerable Fortune 500s.

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