Is Parsons On His Way Out at Time Warner?
After five years at the helm, rumor has it that Chairman/CEO Richard Parsons may step down as soon as next week ( see David Wilkerson’s article from MarketWatch.com). Rumor also has it that Parson’s replacement will be Chief Operating Officer Jeff Bewkes. However, given the vast amount of corporate experience displayed by the Board of Directors at Time Warner, we cannot dismiss the possibility that another member of the Board other than Mr. Bewkes could be selected. We created an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map so that we can “visualize” the corporate experience of the Board of Directors (Note: the information contained and presented in Knowledge Maps is public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States of America).
From viewing the Knowledge Map we find that Mr. Bewkes is one of the newest members of the Board, having joined in Jan. 2007. It is also worth noting that Mr. Bewkes has spent the majority of his career with Time Warner and HBO.
Other Directors who could possibly be named CEO are Stephen Bollenbach, James Barksdale, and Michael Miles. Mr. Bollenbach has been a Director at Time Warner since 2001 and is currently Co-Chairman/CEO of Hilton Hotels. He is also a Director at Harrah’s Entertainment and a former President/CEO of Marriott and Senior Executive VP/CFO of the Walt Disney Company.
Mr. Barksdale has been a Director since 2001. Besides Time Warner he also holds directorships at FedEx and Sun Microsystems and is Co-Founder of The Barksdale Group. Mr. Barksdale is a former President/CEO of Netscape Communications, CEO of AT&T Wireless Services, and Executive VP/COO of FedEx.
Mr. Miles has been a Director with Time Warner since 2001. He also currently serves on the Boards of AMR, Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, Dell, and Sears. He was formerly the Chairman/CEO of Philip Morris (now Altria), Chairman/CEO of Kraft Foods, and Chairman of Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation.
It is possible that one of these, or another, Director could be named the new Chairman/CEO at Time Warner due to their extensive experience.
Click here for an interactive version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map (Internet Explorer browsers only): http://nv.intellectspace.com
No matter how snazzy your chart is, Jeff Bewkes will no doubt be the next ruler of Time Warner. Jeff is a media guy, and to question his corporate experience is questionable in itself. Remember he ran HBO which is a huge unit of Time Warner for many years. As President and COO of TimeWarner, all division heads report into Jeff. I have no idea why you would think someone who used to run FedEx or a none media company could be considered at this time for Dick's gig. Both Dick and Jeff have a good chemistry together and Jeff like Dick is well liked by industry insiders. He knows Time Warner and its businesses and is respected by the division heads. And besides, none of Time Warner's board members want to run TimeWarner anyway. They enjoy being the finger pointers, and carrying the TW board member card. Jeff will get the job and he will do what’s best for Time Warner and its greedy shareholders.
Posted by: Jay Gavrilove | October 28, 2007 at 03:32 PM