Award-winning journalist Chris Maguire has taken on a new ‘roving reporting role for the North’ for the national magazine Business Leader.
Business Leader was acquired in 2023 by leading entrepreneur Richard Harpin, who grew his own venture HomeServe from £50,000 of initial capital to a sale for £4.1bn.
Graham Ruddick, who previously held senior business roles at The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph, has been appointed editor-in-chief and has assembled a stellar line-up of writers and industry experts.
They include Tom Beahon, co-founder of Castore; Steven Swinford, political editor of The Times; Szu Ping Chan, economics editor of The Telegraph; Emma Jones, founder and CEO of Enterprise Nation; author, academic and former cricketer Ed Smith; and Jake Humphrey, co-host of The High Performance Podcast and co-founder of Whisper Group.
Maguire, who will continue in his role of executive editor of leading tech websites BusinessCloud and TechBlast, will write regular bimonthly articles in a section called ‘View From The North’.
The first article published in the May/June issue of the magazine and focuses on the burgeoning gaming industry in the North and includes an interview with best friends Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby, who created tech unicorn Playdemic, which was sold for $1.4bn.
Ruddick said: “The North is key to the UK economy and is home to some amazing businesses and we wanted to make sure the region was represented in the Business Leader.
“We were looking for a respected business voice in the North who could provide genuine insight and the name that kept coming up was Chris Maguire.
“From our first meeting it was clear that Chris is a massive advocate for both the North and great journalism so it’s a perfect fit.”
Maguire said: “I’ve lived and worked in the North for nearly 20 years and consider myself an adopted Northerner.
“You only have to look at the stature of the contributors to Business Leader to realise the quality of the publication.
“What appealed to me most about writing for Business Leader was the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the North’s burgeoning business sector.
“The North is the poor relation when it comes to media coverage compared with the South so I jumped at the opportunity to bang the drum for the region.”
Business Leader’s mission is to help established businesses unlock their full potential and the cover story in the May/June edition of the magazine asks ‘Can you bootstrap a billion-pound business?’
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