[14] Founder Etienne Uzac, a native of France, came up with the idea for the global business news site while a student at the London School of Economics.

He found that the strongest business newspapers had a focus on the United States and Europe and planned to provide broader geographic coverage.

[26] After 2007 the site underwent several revamps and changes of strategy as the company reacted to changes online, culminating with a design to highlight its journalism and better serve advertisers in 2017.

[27][28] Ex-journalists told The Guardian in 2014 that at times they seemed to operate more as "content farms" - demanding high-volume output - than a source of quality journalism.

The works included the International Explainer winner "Lebanon's Refugee Economy"[36] which brought new understanding to the economic and human dimensions of the crisis in Syria.

Crowley stated, "We are not a wire service or so-called paper of record... but I have a vision of where I want to take a site... we've got to have a USP (unique selling proposition)... make ourselves distinctive in journalistic terms.

"[42] In early 2017, International Business Times joined a partnership along with the likes of Bloomberg, Channel 4 and the BBC to work together to combat the spread of fake news.

[43] In June 2017, Jason Murdock — who covers cybersecurity for the International Business Times UK — won Digital Writer of the year at the Drum Online Media Awards, which according to InPublishing magazine "identify the cleverest, boldest and most original purveyors of news and views from around the world.

[45] The reporting spread quickly, prompting responses from senators and lawmakers [46] and subsequently won a SABEW for 2017 Breaking News Category.

[47] In the Columbia Journalism Review, contributing editor Trudy Lieberman credited IBT's David Sirota's investigative reporting for helping to drive a call for reform in Connecticut health insurance regulation.

[50][51][52][53] Early in its history, IBT Media allegedly employed immigrant students of Olivet University who were not authorized to work in the United States to translate English content into Chinese and other languages, paying them less than minimum wage to do so.

[29] Christianity Today claimed in 2012 that it had obtained an email in which Davis stated that he could not join a certain Jang-affiliated organization because his "commission is inherently covert".