Word: aol
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Levin, 62, kept his word last week in an announcement that caught the business world--including top executives at AOL Time Warner--by surprise. He announced that in May he will step down from his CEO post and from the board, and Parsons, 53, will replace him. Parsons has for 18 months split the job of chief operating officer with Robert Pittman, 47, who will now hold that post outright...
...which they are well suited by experience and temperament: the good-humored, diplomatic Parsons at the helm; the disciplined, hard-driving Pittman in the engine room. It also represents Levin's parting imprint on the culture of the merged company. And it has investors wondering how Parsons will lead AOL Time Warner, which has lost much credibility for clinging too long to unrealistic promises about how much it can earn in a sagging economy...
Parsons' rise would have been hard to predict back in May 2000, when the executive positions for the newly merged AOL Time Warner were announced. He and Pittman were given the same title, but it was Pittman who got the plum assignments. Subscriptions were seen as the future of the company, and the divisions that relied on them--the AOL online service, cable TV, the Time Inc. magazines--reported to Pittman. Parsons got divisions, like books, music and movies, that customers bought on an old-fashioned per-use basis. He has since worked on President Bush's Commission to Strengthen...
...Partly by being nice--as corny as that may sound in the cutthroat world of corporate politics. Parsons, who stands 6 ft. 4 in., with a salt-and-pepper beard and a soothing baritone, is a boardroom charmer. Barry Schuler, president of the company's AOL division, recalls extending a hand the first time he met Parsons. "Dick went right past my hand and gave me a big bear hug," says Schuler. Parsons is relentlessly self-deprecating. "One of my kids," he says, "gave me a T shirt that said, I MAY NOT BE BRIGHT, BUT I CAN LIFT HEAVY...
...ambassadorial skills and government contacts may be just what AOL Time Warner needs. To succeed, the company has to forge corporate alliances and persuade regulators around the world to take its side on everything from antitrust questions to e-commerce taxes...