Upstart weekly plans to rival SJ Business Journal

Business Ink building its newsroom with former staffers from the competing paper

By Nathan R. Huff

Eager to tap the tech-savvy Silicon Valley business community, several prominent local businessmen are spearheading a new weekly publication to compete with the San Jose Business Journal.

Saratoga's Phil Boyce, former chairman of Pacific Western Bank, is the idea man behind Silicon Valley Business Ink. Boyce has been interested in starting a business publication for several years, and will serve as co-chair of Business Ink's board.

He is joined by his friend Armon Mills, a managing partner at Shilling & Kenyon/SK Consulting, and former publisher of the Business Journal. He is returning to the print media as the publisher of the Silicon Valley Business Ink.

The founding group also includes Mills' friend and co-chair Jim Evers, the former president and co-owner of KICU, and Ray Madorin, a retired Xilinx executive.

Business Ink is well into the hiring process, and the staff already includes a half-dozen current and former Business Journal employees, including editor John Bowman. The new publication plans to have a full staff of 25 in place before its September debut.

"All these people approached us, we didn't really go to anyone," Mills, who published the Business Journal for nine years, said. Former Journal employees include Bowman, managing editor Vikki Bowes-Mok, chief financial officer Linda Baker and director of marketing and circulation Jerry Waxman.

The 10-person editorial team will focus on tech-related business issues according to Mills, with each reporter taking an additional beat--real estate, banking, lifestyle and others. Boyce said the paper would try to reach out to the young, upwardly mobile business crowd in the valley

"While it's a business paper, it's going to be a lot more than that," Boyce said, adding that he believes there is plenty of room in the Silicon Valley for two business papers.

The Saratoga resident said he would be taking a part-time advisory role in the management of the Business Ink, but the real direction would come from Mills. "It's Armon's paper," Boyce said. "I'm the gray-haired guy in the corner who can lend a hand when needed."

Boyce is a semi-retired banker and investor who now devotes most of his time as chairman of Sand Hill Capital in Menlo Park. He has served with a number of other business-related organizations, as well as serving on the board of Villa Montalvo, the Children's Shelter and Saratoga Parks Foundation.

"The stars seemed to line up," Mills said, "because this gave me the break I needed to be involved in starting my own publication with Phil, Jim and Ray."

Mills lives in Los Gatos. He has been extensively involved in the community, serving as director of the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce in 1996 and as chairman of the Silicon Valley Capital Club. He also volunteers for the YMCA and with the Boy Scouts of America, which awarded him the "Distinguished Citizen Award" in 1998.

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