Business Eye

About Business Eye

Business Eye is Northern Ireland's leading business magazine and news website, published since 1999 from Belfast. Founded by husband-and-wife team Richard and Brenda Buckley, it serves senior managers, directors, business owners and public-sector decision-makers across Northern Ireland, Ireland and further afield with daily online news, a monthly print magazine, video, podcasts and a programme of prestigious awards events. Its website, businesseye.co.uk, publishes rolling business news, while the print edition's 6,000 copies are delivered to a hand-picked database of the region's business leaders.

First published in 1999

Business Eye was first published in 1999 and has since grown in stature to become, in its own words, the leading business magazine serving the Northern Ireland marketplace. Launched in the afterglow of the Good Friday Agreement, as Northern Ireland's economy began to open up to new investment, the magazine positioned itself from the start as a quality title for senior management — a cut above the free-sheet business press, with an emphasis on style and substance.

More than a quarter of a century later it remains independently owned and run by its founders, a rarity in an era of media consolidation, and its reputation for quality, style and content is, it says, the envy of its competitors.

Richard Buckley, Editor

Richard Buckley co-founded Business Eye Magazine in 1999 with his wife and business partner, Brenda, and serves as its Editor. He is an accomplished journalist whose career took in Morton Newspapers, Belfast Telegraph Newspapers and Greer Publications before he struck out on his own.

Buckley's journalism has been recognised at the highest level in Ireland: he has been named Irish Magazine Editor of the Year and Northern Ireland Business Journalist of the Year. He writes the magazine's weekly blog and newsletter, leading its business and economic commentary, and remains the editorial driving force behind the title.

Brenda Buckley, Commercial Director

Brenda Buckley, Commercial Director, co-founded the magazine with Richard in 1999 after leaving her position as PR Director at Manley Communications. She brought more than 25 years of experience in the advertising and marketing industry to the venture, including management roles at Century Newspapers and Greer Publications.

The husband-and-wife founding partnership — editorial excellence on one side, commercial acumen on the other — has been the bedrock of the business ever since, giving the magazine a stability that has carried it through recessions, the digital transition and the pandemic.

Ciara Donnelly and the wider team

Ciara Donnelly is Business Development Director, having joined Business Eye in 2003 as Features Editor before moving into business development. She manages the commercial aspects of the business, oversees advertising and coordinates Business Eye's prestigious awards events. Before joining the magazine she worked in the education sector as a primary school teacher — an unusual route into business publishing that speaks to the company's eye for talent.

The magazine is published by Buckley Publications, the Buckleys' own company, and can be contacted at info@businesseye.co.uk.

Circulation: print and digital

Business Eye operates a dual print-digital model. In print, 6,000 copies of each issue are printed and delivered to a select database of business owners, managers, senior executives and public-sector decision-makers across all business sectors in Northern Ireland — a targeted circulation designed for influence rather than volume.

Digitally, the reach is far larger: 27,674 digital copies of the Business Eye Digital Edition are distributed to a loyal readership of chief executives, senior managers and directors, and Editor Richard Buckley's weekly blog and newsletter reaches the same 27,674-strong audience, which the company describes as leading the way in business and economic content.

Daily news from the NI business world

The website publishes daily business news across Northern Ireland's key sectors. Recent stories have included the launch of a major new Belfast conference for women in banking and finance; construction firm Gilbert-Ash celebrating Silver Diversity Mark status; Northern Ireland AI companies pitching for growth opportunities; the Derry Chamber president calling on the region to seize economic opportunities; and Queen's University officially opening the AMIC Belfast advanced manufacturing innovation centre.

The news pages mix hard business news — investments, appointments, deals and expansions — with people stories, property, motoring and lifestyle content aimed at the magazine's executive readership.

Features, magazine, video and podcast

Beyond the daily newswire, the site's sections include Features, Magazine, Video and Podcast, plus a dedicated Motoring section. The digital magazine edition reproduces the print title for online readers, while video and podcast content extend the brand into multimedia — interviews with business leaders, event coverage and discussion of the economic issues of the day.

The features operation allows for longer-form journalism: profiles of entrepreneurs, sector analyses and investigations into the trends shaping the Northern Ireland economy, from foreign direct investment to the growth of the tech and creative sectors.

Awards events

Business Eye runs a programme of prestigious awards events celebrating excellence in Northern Ireland business, coordinated by Ciara Donnelly. The awards dinners and ceremonies are fixtures of the local business calendar, bringing together the senior executives and decision-makers who make up the magazine's readership and giving the brand a physical presence beyond the page and screen.

Who reads Business Eye

The title is aimed squarely at readers in senior management positions across the spectrum of business in Northern Ireland, Ireland and further afield — the chief executives, directors, founders and public-sector leaders whose decisions shape the regional economy. Its controlled print circulation and opted-in digital distribution mean advertisers and contributors alike are reaching a genuinely senior audience rather than a general readership.

That focus has given the magazine what it calls an enviable reputation for quality, style and content — and a commercial resilience that has kept it publishing, in print and online, for over 25 years.

The site also carries motoring content — its dedicated Motoring section reviews new cars, from the Dacia Spring to Audi's luxury SUV range — alongside people-focused features on the entrepreneurs and executives shaping the region. The mix reflects the magazine's understanding of its audience: senior businesspeople who want their industry news serious, but who also read about cars, property and lifestyle in the same sitting. It is a formula the title has refined over more than 25 years, and one that continues to define Northern Ireland's business press.

A quarter-century of Northern Ireland business journalism

Since 1999 Business Eye has chronicled Northern Ireland's economic transformation: the post-Agreement investment boom, the financial crash, the tech sector's rise, Brexit's complications and the post-pandemic recovery. Few publications have watched the region's business story so closely, or for so long, from the inside.

For Northern Ireland's business community, businesseye.co.uk remains essential reading — the daily record of deals, appointments and ideas moving the region's economy, backed by a magazine that has set the standard for business journalism in the North for more than a quarter of a century.

Appointments, deals and the people pages

A large part of the site's daily output is the people-and-deals news that keeps the business community informed about itself: who is hiring, who is expanding, who is investing. Recent stories have included law firm Foot Anstey welcoming new trainee solicitors, fulfilment company SJH investing £3.5 million in a Greater Belfast expansion, work starting on an extension to the Airbus wing plant in Belfast, and retailer Jo Malone preparing to open a standalone store at Belfast's Victoria Square.

The hospitality and retail sectors feature regularly too — from Derry's Bishop's Gate being crowned Hotel of the Year to The Parlour opening at the Europa Hotel following a £500,000 investment, and Lidl Northern Ireland launching more than 30 new artisanal products in store. This steady drumbeat of commercial milestones is the connective tissue of the site's journalism: the proof, published daily, that the Northern Ireland economy is moving.