[ 20th anniversary ]
SAMANTHA CART
2005
Looking Back on
20
Years
in
Print
A Q&A with Editor in Chief
Kensie Hamilton Fauber
Since 1998, West Virginia Executive
(WVE) magazine has been sharing in-
depth profiles and news coverage with
the Mountain State’s business community,
carving out its reputation as the state’s
premier business-to-business publication.
In 2008, 10 years after the magazine’s
inception and in the midst of a country-
wide financial crisis, five partners bought
out the previous owner and established
Executive Ink, LLC, the publishing com-
pany for WVE, Discover West Virginia
and Profiles magazines. The company has
undergone serious changes and weath-
ered many storms over the past decade,
but it has come out stronger and more
committed than ever to celebrating West
Virginia’s success stories.
In celebration of 20 years in print,
WVE’s editor in chief, Kensie Hamilton
Fauber, shares her views on the maga-
zine’s growth and where it is heading in
the future.
WVE magazine has been in print
for 20 years. What thoughts and
emotions come to mind when you
consider that?
When did 2018 get here, and has it
only be 13 years since my first day at the
magazine? I graduated college in 2005
and started working for the magazine
two weeks later. This has been my only
grown-up job, and I feel blessed to have
been able to put my heart and soul into
this magazine for the past 13 years.
I’m so proud of our magazine and the
role it plays in helping promote our great
state while defeating unfair stereotypes
38
WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
and celebrating our best-kept secret: our
people. I’m also proud of our gifted staff.
They love West Virginia more than most
people I have met, and they take the mis-
sion of the magazine—to promote West
Virginia—very seriously. I couldn’t do this
without them, and I wouldn’t want to.
2010
In what ways has the company
grown or changed over the past
20 years?
Executive Ink, LLC is not the founding
publisher of West Virginia Executive
magazine. My partners and I bought the
magazine from its founder in November
2008 and created Executive Ink as the
parent company. When the sale was final,
we sat down and addressed a whole
slew of topics, from how to improve the
quality of our editorial to completely
overhauling our mail list.
While West Virginia Executive has re-
mained a statewide business magazine,
we have made content changes such as
incorporating departments in each issue
so there is something for every reader.
We also added regional advertising to
offer another marketing opportunity
specific to businesses with a targeted
area in mind.
A few years ago, we did a complete
overhaul of our website, www.wvexec-
utive.com. We now offer online advertis-
ing opportunities, and readers can find
a page-turn version of the current issue
to review. Since then, we have also in-
creased the amount of exclusive online
content, called web exclusives, to help us
overcome the challenges of limited print
space and timeliness as a quarterly mag-
azine. We have launched social media ac-
counts for both West Virginia Executive
and Discover West Virginia in order to
share our content with a new audience
and have a direct line of communication
with our followers.
We have also started planning annual
company retreats. These give us time to
bond as a company—and as friends—
while scheduling time away from ring-
ing phones and full inboxes to focus on
addressing challenges and brainstorming
new opportunities.
We have grown our awards programs
from one to three. Our Young Guns pro-
gram has been around since 1998. We
started Sharp Shooters in 2016, which
focuses on outstanding West Virgin-
ians over the age of 43, and last year, we
launched Lawyers & Leaders in partner-
ship with West Virginia University Col-
lege of Law to honor elite lawyers who
studied at WVU or now practice in the
Mountain State. Our awards programs
are a great way to recognize those making