Fortune is a global business media brand that focuses on companies, markets, technology, and leadership. It operates as a magazine, a digital news organization, and an events producer under Fortune Media Group Holdings. The company is headquartered in New York City. Fortune targets executives, investors, entrepreneurs, and professionals who follow business, finance, and the economy.
Fortune was founded in 1929 by Henry Luce, co-founder of Time Inc. The first issue appeared in 1930, during the Great Depression. It built an early reputation for deep reporting, ambitious photography, and long-form features on industry and corporate power. For decades it was a flagship business title within Time Inc., then later Meredith Corporation, before being sold in 2018 to Fortune Media Group Holdings, controlled by investor Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The sale turned Fortune into an independent, stand-alone business media company.
Fortune today publishes across print, web, mobile, newsletters, video, audio, and live events. The magazine is now a monthly publication that focuses on big themes in global business and the economy. The website delivers daily news, analysis, and commentary on companies, markets, technology, and policy. Coverage spans corporate earnings, dealmaking, startups, venture capital, global trade, macroeconomics, and workplace trends. The brand also produces podcasts and video series that extend its reporting and interviews with senior leaders.
Lists and rankings are central to Fortune’s identity. The Fortune 500, first published in 1955, ranks the largest U.S. companies by revenue and is one of the most cited corporate benchmarks in business media. Fortune also produces the Fortune Global 500, ranking the world’s largest companies, and many other lists, including Most Admired Companies, 40 Under 40, and the Most Powerful Women in Business. These lists rely on extensive financial data, surveys, and peer assessments and often shape corporate reputation and investor perception.
Editorially, Fortune emphasizes reported storytelling, analytical features, and access to top executives. Journalists cover boardrooms, earnings calls, regulatory actions, and technology shifts that affect business. Articles often combine narrative reporting with data, charts, and rankings to explain corporate performance or industry change. Fortune also publishes opinion and commentary from editors, columnists, and guest contributors, but its core is reported business journalism with a focus on strategy and leadership. External media analysts rate Fortune’s overall political and ideological bias as center, with coverage that includes a range of perspectives on business and policy.
Live and virtual events extend Fortune’s role in the business community. The brand runs conferences such as the Fortune Global Forum, which convenes multinational executives, policy makers, and thinkers around key economic issues. It also hosts the Most Powerful Women Summit and Brainstorm series focused on technology and sustainability. These events feature interviews, panels, and working sessions with CEOs, founders, investors, and government leaders, and they feed back into Fortune’s editorial coverage.
Fortune holds a significant place in the business media landscape because of its long history, its lists, and its access to corporate leadership. Its rankings influence how companies present themselves to shareholders, employees, and customers. Its features and investigative work have chronicled major shifts in American and global capitalism, including the rise of multinational corporations, the tech industry, private equity, and the digital economy. As a multi-platform brand with global reach, Fortune continues to position itself as a guide to major business decisions, corporate performance, and the people who run the world’s leading companies.