Word: warners
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...promised to lobby the board of directors to make Parsons CEO of AOL Time Warner. The sweetener: Levin confided that he didn't intend to serve out the two years left on his contract. In fact, Levin had quietly inserted a provision allowing him to step down on just six months' notice. Not only might Parsons become the first African American to lead the world's most influential media company--he might take over very soon...
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...
...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...
...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...