Richard Parsons, one in every of company America’s most outstanding Black executives who held high posts at Time Warner and Citigroup, died Thursday, the monetary companies firm Lazard, the place Parsons was a longtime board member, announced. He was 76.
“Dick was the chief to whom different leaders turned for recommendation and a gradual, certain set of arms throughout their most consequential moments,” Lazard stated in a press release.
Parsons, who died at his Manhattan house, was recognized with a number of myeloma in 2015 and cited “unanticipated issues” from the illness for chopping again on work a number of years later.
The NBA, the place Parsons was interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014, was amongst organizations providing condolences.
“Dick Parsons was an excellent and transformational chief and an enormous of the media business who led with integrity and by no means shied away from a problem,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stated.
Parsons’ pal Ronald Lauder told The New York Times that the reason for loss of life was most cancers. Parsons stepped down Dec. 3 from the boards of Lazard and Lauder’s firm, Estée Lauder, citing well being causes. He had been on Estée Lauder’s board for 25 years.
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg through Getty Images
Parsons, a Brooklyn native who began faculty at 16, was named chairman of Citigroup in 2009, one month after leaving Time Warner Inc., the place he helped restore the corporate’s stature following its much-maligned acquisition by web supplier America Online Inc.
He steered Citigroup again to revenue after monetary turmoil from the subprime mortgage disaster, which upended the financial system in 2007 and 2008.
Parsons was named interim chairman of CBS’ board of administrators in September 2018 however resigned a month later due to sickness.
Parsons stated in a press release on the time that he was already coping with a number of myeloma when he joined the board, however “unanticipated issues have created extra new challenges.” He stated his docs suggested him to chop again on his commitments to make sure restoration.
“Dick’s storied profession embodied the best traditions of American enterprise management,” Lazard stated in a press release. The firm, the place Parsons was a board member from 2012 till this month, praised his “unmistakable intelligence and his irresistible heat.”
“Dick was greater than an iconic chief in Lazard’s historical past — he was a testomony to how knowledge, heat, and unwavering judgment might form not simply firms, however individuals’s lives,” the corporate stated. “His legacy lives on within the numerous leaders he recommended, the establishments he renewed, and the doorways he opened for others.”
Parsons was often known as a talented negotiator, a diplomat and a disaster supervisor.
Although he was with Time Warner by way of its difficulties with AOL, he earned respect for the corporate and rebuilt its relations with Wall Street. He streamlined Time Warner’s construction, pared debt and bought Warner Music Group and a e book publishing division.
He additionally fended off a problem from activist investor Carl Icahn in 2006 to interrupt up the corporate and helped Time Warner attain settlements with buyers and regulators over questionable accounting practices at AOL.
Parsons joined Time Warner as president in 1995 after serving as chairman and chief government of Dime Bancorp Inc., one of many largest U.S. thrift establishments.
In 2001, after AOL used its fortunes because the main supplier of Internet entry within the U.S. to purchase Time Warner for $106 billion in inventory, Parsons turned co-chief working officer with AOL government Robert Pittman. In that function, he was answerable for the corporate’s content material companies, together with film studios and recorded music.
He turned CEO in 2002 with the retirement of Gerald Levin, one of many key architects of that merger. Parsons was named Time Warner chairman the next 12 months, changing AOL founder Steve Case, who had additionally championed the mix.
The newly shaped firm’s web division shortly turned a drag on Time Warner. The promised synergies between conventional and new media by no means materialized. AOL started seeing a discount in subscribers in 2002 as Americans changed dial-up connections with broadband from cable TV and cellphone firms.
Parsons stepped down as CEO in 2007 and as chairman in 2008. A 12 months later AOL cut up from Time Warner and started buying and selling as a separate firm, following years of struggles to reinvent itself as a enterprise centered on promoting and content material. Time Warner is now owned by AT&T Inc.
A board member of Citigroup and its predecessor, Citibank, since 1996, Parsons was named chairman in 2009 at a time of turmoil for the monetary establishment. Citigroup had suffered 5 straight quarters of losses and acquired $45 billion in authorities support. Its board had been criticized for permitting the financial institution to speculate so closely within the dangerous housing market.
Citigroup returned to revenue beneath Parsons, beginning in 2010, and wouldn’t have a quarterly loss once more till the fourth quarter of 2017. Parsons retired from that job in 2012.
In 2014 he stepped in as interim CEO of the Clippers till Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took over later that 12 months.
Parsons, a Republican, beforehand labored as a lawyer for Nelson Rockefeller, a former Republican governor of New York, and in Gerald Ford’s White House. Those early stints gave him grounding in politics and negotiations. He additionally was an financial adviser on President Barack Obama’s transition workforce.
Parsons, who beloved jazz and co-owned a Harlem jazz membership, additionally served as chairman of the Apollo Theater and the Jazz Foundation of America. And he held positions on the boards of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Parsons performed basketball on the University of Hawaii at Manoa and acquired his regulation diploma from Albany Law School in 1971. He is survived by his spouse, Laura, and their household.
