Forbes has reinvented itself in recent years. How? Miguel Forbes: Forbes Media has evolved into a company that delivers news and information about business across multiple platforms, including print, online, tablets and mobile. Today, Forbes thinks of itself as a 95-year-old start-up – always growing, always innovating, and always building its future. Over the last two and a half years, www.forbes.com has been reinvented. Since June 2010, the audience on our web site has tripled, now reaching 46 million unique monthly visitors (according to Omniture). The company is also leveraging the power of the Forbes brand to drive
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Forbes has embarked on a new growth strategy, including a boost in international editions to 26 and the reinvention of www.forbes.com. The appointment of Forbes Media president and CEO Mike Perlis in 2010 – the first non-Forbes CEO since the company was founded more than 95 years ago – was pivotal and triggered a growth strategy. Miguel Forbes (left), president of worldwide development, and COO Mike Federle, reveal the formula behind the recent successes.
brand extensions, ranging from events and conferences, to newsletters and an investment multi-family advisory firm.
The international side has really taken off? What tempted you in? Forbes: It was a natural progress. We had an established publication in the US and we saw it as an opportunity. We went into China and then Russia. And then once you have a successful publication in Russia, the whole of Eastern Europe follows. This was true in China, too. Once you can establish yourself in a dominant market, the other markets follow. Forbes Asia magazine was launched in September 2005 to expand and enhance
the coverage of this very robust region. We redoubled our international expansion efforts in 2008 when we grew beyond the eight editions we had at the time. Today we have 26 – and we are targeting to have 33 by the end of 2013. That makes Forbes the largest business and finance media brand on the planet.
Were you surprised by the level of success? Forbes: I was certainly pleased with the passion for the brand in overseas markets. The brand really means something to people in some of these smaller markets – in a very profound way. For many, the ultimate acknowledgement of success is to be covered in a Forbes List. For us, it has been quite an odyssey.
When I was growing up, the thought of launching Forbes magazine in Russia and China – and have them enjoy such success, was unthinkable. These are markets that had never had Western-style investigative journalism – much less pro-capitalist publications. In Russia, you had czars, communists and then oligarchs – so it was a truly foreign concept that we were able to pioneer an aggressive, American-style publication in that market and then in China. It’s an example of how the world is changing. China has developed an entrepreneurial culture and audience. And look at Russia – so many people unable to