Business in Vancouver’s weekly print publication has reached 1,800 editions that span three and a half decades.
Aiming to provide essential business information for readers and advertisers, BIV’s first edition rolled off the presses dated Sept. 11, 1989, following months of behind-the-scenes planning. Other early investors included Buy&Sell founder Mike Abbott, John Collison and a man Ladner described as pivotal: Art Rennison.
“The biggest part of my job was selling subscriptions,” he said. “Everybody outside of the city of Vancouver thought it was just Vancouver news, and not news from the region, so that was always a challenge.”After a 48-page, Sept. 11, 1989 “preview issue,” the next edition was published nearly a month later and dated Oct. 2. Sales staff used those intervening weeks to show the publication to potential advertisers and acquaint them with how the paper would look, Wheatley said.
“I was delighted to see the newspaper start,” said Audain, whose business leadership and philanthropy have been featured in many of the 1,798 print editions published by BIV since Oct. 2, 1989. BIV has produced hundreds of lists since, and has for years published an annual Book of Lists that features most of the lists researched and produced by BIV over the past year, including lists of:• The Top 100 fastest-growing companies in B.C.
He hailed BIV for becoming an advocate and voice for province’s small-business sector, and for probing into issues more deeply than other publications. That entrepreneurial spirit continues under different leadership, exemplified by the launch of news products such as an Indigenous business magazine titled Mákook pi Sélim. Co-created by consulting editor Chastity Davis-Alphonse and current BIV editor-in-chief Hayley Woodin Hastings, the publication started in 2021 and has produced five editions—all of which exclusively feature content written by Indigenous journalists and columnists.
The nomination process for the 2024 awards programs closes in mid-summer. Winners will be recognized in the now-annual Forty under 40 magazine in December, and feted at a February 2025 gala event, which will also celebrate 35 years of honourees young B.C. business leaders. “Back in that day, $11 million was an astoundingly large amount of money,” Armstrong said of Mattrick’s transaction.“It gave me a lot of credibility and it gave me a lot of confidence,” he said. “It was a very nice award to receive. I’ve attended many of the events over the years and I think it is always a great list of up-and-comers.”
“It was original and very helpful to the business community. For me that paper has been a wealth of assistance in our business.”BIV’s first gala event to celebrate its Influential Women in Business Award winners took place Feb. 24, 2000, and included a whopping 22 finalists.That format has long since changed. BIV now names five or six award winners long before the event, which has been held on or near International Women’s Day for many years.
“Ultimately, that’s what kept the business afloat: Selling ads and creating revenue streams. We had to come up with legitimate awards for recognition that people would pay to read and would lead to paid advertising.”“Women, young women and girls in particular, need role models,” said Webnames.ca co-founder and CEO Cybele Negris, who is both a past Forty under 40 winner and an IWIB Award recipient.
She added that being included in BIV’s annual BC500 magazine—which profiles 500 influential British Columbian business leaders—is equally valuable as it recognizes her success “not just as a woman, but as a business leader.” Greene Raine told BIV that she and husband Al Raine split business tasks. She handled public relations and marketing while he handled the business planning.
The awards, she said, raised the profiles of many women and showed that they were qualified to sit on corporate boards. Fax machine enthusiasm was fading when technology columnist Alan Zisman started his 17-year stint writing for BIV in 1995.“One of my lessons learned is how we start assuming that as soon as some new technology is announced, that it will be widely adopted overnight,” he said.Sometimes that technology—like the fax machine—fades into irrelevance, he said. Other times, it becomes ubiquitous.