Richard Parsons, one of America's most prominent black executives who held top positions at Time Warner and Citigroup, died Thursday. It was 76.
Parsons, who died at his Manhattan home, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2015 and cited “unforeseen complications” from the disease due to a job cut a few years later.
Financial services firm Lazard, where Parsons was a longtime board member, confirmed his death. said Parsons' friend Ronald Lauder The New York Times that the cause of death was cancer.
Parsons resigned on Dec. 3 from the boards of Lazard and the Lauder Company, Estée Lauder, citing health reasons. He was on the board of Estée Lauder for 25 years.
“Dick was an American original, a giant who excelled in the worlds of business, media, culture, philanthropy and beyond,” Ronald Lauder said in a statement on behalf of the Lauder family.
David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros.
“Everyone who had the opportunity to work with him and know him saw this unusual combination of exceptional leadership with integrity and kindness,” Zaslav said, calling him “one of the great problem solvers this industry has ever seen.”
Parsons, a Brooklyn native who started college at 16, has built a track record of guiding large companies through difficult times.
He returned Citigroup to profitability after turmoil from the global financial crisis and helped restore Time Warner after its much-maligned takeover by Internet provider America Online.
Parsons was appointed to the CBS board in September 2018, but resigned a month later due to illness.
Parsons said in a statement at the time that he was already dealing with multiple myeloma when he joined the board, but “unforeseen complications created additional new challenges.” He said his doctors advised him to cut back on his engagements to ensure recovery.
“Dick's storied career embodied the best traditions of American business leadership,” Lazard said in a statement. The company, where Parsons was a board member from 2012 until this month, praised his “undeniable intelligence and irresistible warmth”.
“Dick was more than just an iconic leader in Lazard's history – he was a testament to how wisdom, warmth and unwavering judgment could shape not just companies, but people's lives,” the company said. “His legacy lives on in the countless leaders he mentored, the institutions he renewed and the doors he opened for others.”
Parsons was known as a skilled negotiator, diplomat and crisis manager.
Although he was with Time Warner through its difficulties with AOL, he gained respect for the company and rebuilt its relationship with Wall Street. He modernized Time Warner's structure, eliminated debt, and in early 2004 sold Warner Music Group to a group of investors led by Seagram heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. for about $2.6 billion. For Parsons, the sale represented the fulfillment of a key promise to Wall Street — he had pledged to reduce Time Warner's debt by $8 billion by the end of 2004. Before selling the music division, Parsons had already unloaded a half stake in Comedy Central , a stake in the satellite television company that operates DirecTV and the Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers sports teams. It also secured a $750 million settlement from Microsoft to resolve an antitrust lawsuit.
He later fended off a challenge from activist investor Carl Icahn in 2006 to break up the company and helped Time Warner reach settlements with investors and regulators over questionable accounting practices at AOL.
Parsons joined Time Warner as chairman in 1995 after serving as chairman and CEO of Dime Bancorp Inc., one of the largest US financial institutions.
In 2001, after AOL used its fortunes as the leading U.S. Internet access provider to buy Time Warner for $106 billion in stock, Parsons became co-CEO with AOL executive Robert Pittman. In this role, he was responsible for the company's content businesses, including motion picture studios and recorded music.
He became CEO in 2002 upon the departure of Gerald Levin, one of the key architects of this merger. Parsons was appointed chairman of Time Warner the following year, replacing AOL founder Steve Case, who had also championed the combination.
The Internet division of the newly formed company quickly became a bottleneck for Time Warner. The promised synergies between traditional and new media never materialized. AOL began seeing a decline in subscribers in 2002 as Americans replaced dial-up connections with broadband cable and phone companies.
Parsons stepped down as CEO in 2007 and chairman in 2008. A year later, AOL spun off from Time Warner and began trading as a separate company, after years of struggling to reinvent itself as an advertising- and content-focused business. 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 during a period of turmoil for the financial institution. Citigroup had posted losses for five straight quarters and received a $45 billion government bailout. Its board had been criticized for allowing the bank to invest so heavily in the risky housing market.
Citigroup returned to profit under Parsons starting in 2010, and wouldn't post a quarterly loss again until the fourth quarter of 2017. Parsons retired from that job in 2012.
In 2014, he took over as interim CEO of the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers until Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took over later that year.
“Dick Parsons was a brilliant and transformative leader and a giant of the media industry who led with integrity and never shied away from a challenge,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
Parsons, a Republican, previously worked as a lawyer for Nelson Rockefeller, the former Republican governor of New York, and in Gerald Ford's White House. These early stages gave him ground in politics and negotiations. He was also a financial advisor to President Barack Obama's transition team.
Parsons, whose love of jazz led to co-ownership of a Harlem jazz club, also served as President 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 played basketball at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and received his law degree from Albany Law School in 1971. He is survived by his wife, Laura, and their family.
