The businessman who led Time Warner and helped broker some of the biggest and most iconic US companies navigate tough circumstances, Richard Parsons, has passed away at 76.
Image by Roy S. Johnson
As a prominent Black business executive, Parsons was known for his , steering major companies, including Time Warner and Citigroup, through periods of distress. He also advised US presidents and served on the boards of Estee Lauder, the Museum of Modern Art and other companies. (Time Warner is the former parent company of CNN.)
“Dick Parsons was the most brilliant person I’ve ever met — wise, steady, and endlessly insightful,” said Ronald Lauder, one of the heirs to the Estee Lauder cosmetics company who worked with Parsons. “His composure, brilliance, and unwavering ability to find solutions were unparalleled.”
Parsons’ death was confirmed both by Lauder and in a statement from financial services firm Lazard, where he had served on the board.
“Dick’s storied career embodied the finest traditions of American business leadership,” Lazard said.
With a steady hand, Parsons wielded influence in Corporate America during the dot-com bust and the Great Recession.
He was widely credited for Time Warner’s stunning turnaround after a botched $165 billion merger with AOL, the web portal ubiquitous in the early days of the internet. With Parsons as its CEO, Time Warner slashed its debt in roughly half as it ushered in a new era of sustainable growth.
Then Parsons was tapped to lead Citigroup as chairman through a complex and much-needed structuring process after the financial crisis of 2008, which led to the biggest banking collapse in US history.
“Dick played both an enormous role in building Time Warner but was also one of the great problem solvers this industry has ever seen. It’s why so of us many looked up to him and sought his wise advice,” said David Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery who had met Parsons about 30 years ago at NBC. He said that Parsons was a “tough and brilliant negotiator, always looking to create something where both sides win.”
His Battle with a Rare Blood Disorder
Back in 2019, Parsons opened up about his ongoing battle with the rare blood cancer, multiple myeloma, in an interview with Fortune Magazine.
“I’ve been now on chemotherapy for quite some time – about a year and a half, closing in on two years – and they’ve really knocked the cancer down,” Parsons explained. “The issue now is how to keep it down.”
Parsons learned of his disease about a year and a half ago. He’s one of the 30,000 or so multiple myeloma diagnoses for African American men every year in the U.S.
Prior to his death, Parsons was participating in a medical trial with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF), which runs studies and tracks MM patients over time. The information and analysis is shared between physicians, patients, researchers and more.
“The foe is one that you can relate to in a way. I sort of know what he’s thinking, what they’re thinking, I can anticipate what they’re going to do because I’m essentially one of them,” Parsons said about his past jobs. “I’m not in control of this [multiple myeloma]. You have to put yourself more in the hands of someone else as opposed to steer your own ship.”
Black Men and Multiple Myeloma
African Americans are disproportionately affected by multiple myeloma (MM), a type of blood cancer:
Incidence
Black people are more likely to develop MM than white people:
In 2019, there were an estimated 15.8 new cases of MM per 100,000 Black people, compared to 6.9 cases per 100,000 white people.
Black people are diagnosed with MM two to three times more often than white people.
Risk factors
Modifiable risk factors for MM, like diabetes and high body mass index (BMI), also affect Black people more than white people.
Survival
In a study of patients diagnosed between 1973 and 2005, Black people had higher survival rates than white people, especially for those ages 50–69 and 70 and older.
Treatment
Black people are less likely to be prescribed stem cell treatment and may wait longer for a stem cell transplant.
Other symptoms of MM include:
- Bone pain and fractures
- Fatigue
- Weakness in the arms and legs
- Fever
- Bruising easily or bleeding
- Trouble breathing
Black people may also be more likely to develop hypercalcemia, a complication of MM.
How Parsons Became a Business Giant
Parsons was born one of five children in Brooklyn New York. After skipping a grade in grammar school and another in high school, he attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he played varsity basketball. After four years, he was seven credits short of his diploma. However, Parsons discovered that he could get into a law school in New York without a college degree if he scored well enough on his pre-law exams. Parsons was accepted by Albany Law School of Union University, New York, where he earned a Juris Doctor in 1971 and finished at the top of his class.
In 1971, Parsons completed an internship at the New York State Legislature, at which time he was invited to work as a lawyer for the staff of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. When Rockefeller was appointed Vice President of the United States, in 1974, Parsons followed him to Washington D.C., where he worked directly with President Gerald Ford. He also met a deputy attorney general, Harold R. Tyler, and one of his aides, a young Rudolph W. Giuliani, with whom he was to be closely associated—supporting Giuliani’s New York mayoral campaign and heading his transitional council.
In 1977, Parsons returned to New York and became a partner after only two years at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler; also working at the firm was Giuliani. During his 11 years at the firm, Parsons took on Happy Rockefeller, the widow of Nelson (who had died in 1979), as a high-profile client. In 1988, he was recruited to serve as chief operating officer of the Dime Savings Bank of New York by CEO Harry W. Albright Jr., who was a former Rockefeller aide. Parsons later became chairman and CEO, and oversaw a merger with Anchor Savings Bank, gaining a substantial sum when the Dime Bank was demutualized.
In 1991, on the recommendation of Nelson’s brother Laurance Rockefeller to the then-CEO Steve Ross, Parsons was invited to join Time Warner’s board. He subsequently became president of the company in 1995, recruited by chief executive Gerald Levin. Parsons helped negotiate the company’s merger with America Online in 2000, creating a $165 billion media conglomerate that has been described as the “worst merger of all time.” In December 2001, it was announced that Levin would retire and Parsons had been selected as his successor. The announcement surprised many media watchers who expected chief operating officer Robert Pittman to take the helm. In 2003, Parsons made the announcement of the name change from AOL Time Warner to simply Time Warner.
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