Richard Parsons, who presided over Time Warner as CEO from 2002-2007 because the media conglomerate was recovering from the epic fail of the AOL merger and who later turned interim chairman of CBS to proper its ship following the resignation of Leslie Moonves, died Thursday in Manhattan after a protracted sickness. He was 76.
Parsons’ longtime good friend Ronald S. Lauder, a member with Parsons of the Estée Lauder board, instructed the New York Times at this time that Parsons died of bone most cancers.
One in every of nation’s strongest Black executives, Parsons was an astute, gentle spoken and genial presence. He was born in 1948 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, the son of {an electrical} technician and a homemaker and considered one of 5 kids. He attended the College of Hawaii and went on to a regulation diploma at Union College Albany.
Parsons served in each state and federal politics underneath New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and presidents Gerald R. Ford, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In 2008, he was a member of the then president-elect Obama’s Financial Transition Crew and later served as a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
He took the helm of the corporate then referred to as AOL Time Warner in 2002, changing the late Gerald Levin as CEO. Confronted with financial and culture-clash fallout from what’s broadly thought-about one of many worst mergers in company historical past, he eliminated ‘AOL’ from the corporate’s title and, dramatically, from atop its former Columbus Circle headquarters the Time Warner Middle in 2003.
He had joined Time Warner as president in 1995 and voted for the merger, which was inked by Levin simply because the dotcom increase crested and broadband was set to displace dial-up providers like AOL. He confronted huge losses, livid traders and challenges of getting the enterprise again on observe whilst he fended off company raider Carl Icahn, who was pushing for the corporate to separate up. Parsons reached an settlement with the activist investor, identified for his current unsuccessful pictures to scale the board of Disney. In 2009, Time Warner spun out AOL as a individually stand-alone firm.
Parsons handed the Time Warner reins to then-COO Jeff Bewkes, who led the pared down firm, which additionally offered its tales music and journal divisions, by to its subsequent sale to AT&T.
Discovery Communications acquired the corporate in 2022. “All of us at Warner Bros. Discovery suffered a horrible loss at this time,” stated David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I met Dick Parsons about 30 years in the past once I began at NBC. He was a terrific mentor and good friend. I knew him as powerful and sensible negotiator, at all times seeking to create one thing the place each side win. All who bought an opportunity to work with him and know him noticed that uncommon mixture of nice management with integrity and kindness. Dick performed each an unlimited function in constructing Time Warner however was additionally one of many nice drawback solvers this trade has ever seen. It’s why so of us many seemed as much as him and sought his smart recommendation.”
Parsons was named chairman of Citigroup within the aftermath of the 2008 monetary disaster, serving to to regular the banking big, a lot as he did a long time earlier in his trailblazing first company turnaround with the corporate that turned Dime Bancorp. In a New York Occasions interview in 1998 when he took the highest job at Dime, he was requested about being a black government who was the primary to run a financial savings and mortgage of that measurement. “The actual fact is, on this society, you will be held to the next stage of accountability,” he stated.
He was named interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014 amid the scandal round then-owner Donald Sterling and compelled Sterling to resign and promote the staff.
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In September 2018, Parsons, who had been serving as an advisor to CBS controlling shareholder Shari Redstone’s Nationwide Amusements amid a battle with Moonves for management of CBS Corp, was appointed interim CBS chairman after Moonves was pressured resignation amid allegations of sexual misconduct from a number of girls.
That tenure lasted only a month, nonetheless, resigning in October of that 12 months. Parsons cited well being causes associated to his ongoing battle with a number of myeloma as the rationale for his sudden exit.
In all ventures, his excessive likability served him nicely. An announcement at this time by Lazard, the place he served as a board member, recalled a longtime good friend who stated Parsons had “the power to make mates … in an empty elevator.”
He co-founded VC funding agency Creativeness Capital in 2017. He has served on the boards of Citigroup, Estee Lauder, amongst others, and been a longtime senior advisor to large Windfall Fairness Companions. He served as chairman of the Rockefeller Basis.
A wine afficionado, Parsons acquired Il Palazzone vineyard in Montalcino, Tuscany, a premium producer of Brunello, in 2002. He offered it in 2021.
He was a big contributor to arts and tradition, serving as chairman of the Apollo Theater and the Jazz Basis of America, and sitting on the boards of the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition, the American Museum of Pure Historical past, and the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York Metropolis.
Parsons additionally served as chairman of the Fairness Alliance, based in 2021 to put money into enterprise capital fund managers and founders who’re folks of colour and/or girls.
Lately, stated Lazard, “Dick turned his consideration to what he noticed as considered one of American enterprise’s most urgent challenges — the necessity to democratize entry to capital. By means of his management of Fairness Alliance, he understood deeply that success in life was, as he usually quoted, ‘10% what you already know, 10% who you already know and 80% luck’ — and he was a trailblazer in serving to others entry all three.”
