Top US publisher joins the BN team

LEADING US publishing executive Joseph Zwiebel has joined Business News to drive the group’s development of new products.

Business News chief executive Charles Kobelke said the company was thrilled to have someone of Mr Zwiebel’s calibre on board.

“Joe will play a pivotal role, developing and growing a group of sustainable, profitable and repeatable projects inside our special projects business unit,” Mr Kobelke said.

Mr Zwiebel, who has a long association with Business News, has founded and run several business publications in the US since the early 1990s.

He founded the Hartford Business Journal in 1992 in Hartford, Connecticut, and went on to establish its parent company, New England Business Media in 2007.

The company acquired the Worcester Business Journal in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Mainebiz in Portland, Maine. It started New Haven Biz in 2019.

Mr Zwiebel sold his half interest in NEBM in June 2020.

He is working remotely from his home office in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, but will be relocating to Perth as soon as travel restrictions are lifted.

Mr Zwiebel has long ties with Elton Swarts, a senior stakeholder in Business News and its executive chairman.

The pair met through the Alliance of Business Publications, an international trade group for regional business newspapers, where Mr Zwiebel served as board president until 2016.

Mr Swarts visited the offices of the Hartford Business Journal in 2004.

“Joe had just completed a high-quality coffee table book focused on the Hartford region and we talked about how well a book like this might play in our market,” Mr Swarts said.

“Over the next several months we worked on a plan for a similar publication in WA.

“We are really excited that he will be returning in this role to our team.”

In 2005, Mr Zwiebel took a year-long sabbatical from his role in Hartford to spearhead the publication of Western Australia, a Land of Rising Stars, which was highly successful.

It is still published every four years. The latest  version, WA Land of Opportunity, was printed this year.

“Working with Elton and the great team at Business News, living in Perth, and exploring Australia, New Zealand, and wide swathes of Asia was formative for my kids, and really a golden year for our family,” Mr Zwiebel, who will be director of new product development, said.

“I had never experienced a business culture quite as dynamic as WA, and we felt very much at home.

“The prospect of returning and working with Charles Kobelke and Elton Swarts, is really a dream come true.

“Business News has an impressive record of success and innovation in regional business publishing worldwide.

“They have even more ambitious growth plans over the next several years.

“I’m enthusiastically looking forward to helping make great things happen with the team at BN, first remotely, and then on the ground in Perth as soon as possible.”

Mr Swarts said: “Joe joining us is exciting, because he is an acclaimed industry leader in the USA, and it is amazing to be able to import his talent, experience and enthusiasm into our world-class organisation.”

Business News is a trusted, independent source for quality news and information about politics and commerce in WA.

With a highly engaged readership of more than two million, Business News serves senior executives, CEOs, owners, directors, CROs, COOs and government ministers across all sectors of business.

Mr.Zwiebel can be reached at Joseph.Zwiebel@businessnews.com.au