American City Business Journals (ACBJ) is an American newspaper chain based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes under six brands, which together reach four million readers: The Business Journals, which publishes local business news for 43 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News, Street & Smith's Sports Business Daily, Inside Lacrosse, AmericanInno, and Bizwomen.com. The company is owned by Advance Publications.[2]
History
In 2009, ACBJ acquired Portfolio.com, a website formerly associated with the now-defunct, Condé Nast Portfolio, and redirected the URL to the ACBJ website.[3]
Mike Russell founded American City Business Journals. The President and CEO of American City is Whitney Shaw. Shaw was previously senior vice president of ACBJ and president of its sports-publishing division. He succeeds his father, Ray Shaw, who was chairman and CEO of ACBJ for 25 years. Ray Shaw, the company's chairman from 1989 until his 2009 death, bought a controlling interest along with a partner in 1989, selling to Advance Publications in 1995. It was Russell who suggested Shaw buy the entire company rather than just a few journals. Under Ray Shaw's leadership, the company moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Charlotte and greatly increased the number of its publications.[1]
Newspapers
The Business Journals
The Business Journals is the online media division of American City Business Journals which operates websites for each of the company's 40 print business journals, as well as its first web-only local business news and information site for Los Angeles, California.
The site contains local business news from around the nation, updated throughout the day, along with an archive that contains more than 2 million business news articles published since 1996. The Business Journals' sites have more than four million unique visitors each month.
The Business Journal's Forty Under 40 is an annual list compiled and published by the Business Journal newspapers since 1992.[18][19] The purpose is to list the 40 most successful entrepreneurs under the age of 40. The 40 are usually nominated from within individual areas in range of the local business journal's publication.
The Business Journal's Best Places to Work ranks top businesses in local areas for best employee experience. Rankings are determined based on surveys uncovering such variables as leadership, corporate culture, and communications. Some variation exists between different cities. For example, Minneapolis-St. Paul recognized 59 companies and 4 individuals in 2018[20], whereas Los Angeles will honor its top 100 in 2019.[21]