NEW YORK – Richard Parsons, one in all company America’s most outstanding Black executives who held prime posts at Time Warner and Citigroup, died Thursday. He was 76.
Parsons, who died at his Manhattan dwelling, was recognized with a number of myeloma in 2015 and cited “unanticipated issues” from the illness for chopping again on work just a few years later.
The monetary providers firm Lazard, the place Parsons was a longtime board member, confirmed his loss of life. The NBA, the place Parsons was interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014, was amongst organizations providing condolences.
“Dick Parsons was a superb and transformational chief and a large of the media trade who led with integrity and by no means shied away from a problem,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver mentioned.
Parsons’ buddy Ronald Lauder advised The New York Instances 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.
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 On-line 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 to the board of CBS in September 2018 however resigned a month later due to sickness.
Parsons mentioned 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 mentioned his medical doctors 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 mentioned in a press release. The corporate, 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 corporations, however folks’s lives,” the corporate mentioned. “His legacy lives on within the numerous leaders he endorsed, the establishments he renewed, and the doorways he opened for others.”
Parsons was referred to as a talented negotiator, a diplomat and a disaster supervisor.
Though he was with Time Warner by way of its difficulties with AOL, he earned respect for the corporate and rebuilt its relations with Wall Road. He streamlined Time Warner’s construction, pared debt and offered Warner Music Group and a guide 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 Web entry within the U.S. to purchase Time Warner for $106 billion in inventory, Parsons grew to become 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 grew to become 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 yr, changing AOL founder Steve Case, who had additionally championed the mixture.
The newly fashioned firm’s Web division rapidly grew to become 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 Individuals changed dial-up connections with broadband from cable TV and telephone corporations.
Parsons stepped down as CEO in 2007 and as chairman in 2008. A yr later AOL break up from Time Warner and commenced buying and selling as a separate firm, following years of struggles to reinvent itself as a enterprise targeted 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 obtained $45 billion in authorities support. Its board had been criticized for permitting the financial institution to take a position so closely within the dangerous housing market.
Citigroup returned to revenue underneath 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 yr.
Parsons, a Republican, beforehand labored as a lawyer for Nelson Rockefeller, a former Republican governor of New York, and in Gerald Ford’s White Home. These early stints gave him grounding in politics and negotiations. He additionally was an financial adviser on President Barack Obama’s transition workforce.
Parsons, who liked jazz and co-owned a Harlem jazz membership, additionally served as Chairman of the Apollo Theater and the Jazz Basis of America. And he held positions 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 Fashionable Artwork in New York Metropolis.
Parsons performed basketball on the College of Hawaii at Manoa and obtained his regulation diploma from Albany Legislation College in 1971. He’s survived by his spouse, Laura, and their household.
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This obituary was primarily written by the late Related Press reporter Anick Jesdanun, who died in 2020.
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