NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Parsons, one of America's most prominent black executives who held top positions at Time Warner and Citigroup, died Thursday. He was 76.
Parsons, who died at his Manhattan home, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2015 and cited “unexpected complications” from the disease because he cut back on work a few years later.
The financial services provider Lazard, where Parsons was a long-time board member, confirmed his death.
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David Zaslav, the president and CEO of Time Warner successor Warner Bros. Discovery, remembered Parsons as a “great mentor and friend” and a “tough and brilliant negotiator, always looking for something where both sides win.”
“Anyone who had the opportunity to work with him and knew him saw that unusual combination of great leadership with integrity and kindness,” Zaslav said, calling him “one of the great problem solvers this industry has ever seen.”
Parsons' friend Ronald Lauder told The New York Times that the cause of death was cancer. Parsons resigned from the boards of Lazard and Lauder's company, Estée Lauder, on December 3 due to health reasons. He served on the board of Estée Lauder for 25 years.
Parsons, who was born in Brooklyn and started college at age 16, was named chairman of Citigroup in 2009, a month after joining Time Warner Inc. where he helped restore the company's stature following its much-maligned takeover by Internet service provider America Online Inc.
He steered Citigroup back to profits after the financial turmoil caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, which rocked the economy in 2007 and 2008.
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 that “unexpected complications have created additional new challenges.” He said his doctors advised him to cut back on his duties to ensure recovery.
“Dick's storied career embodied the finest 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 his irresistible warmth.”
“Dick was more than an iconic leader in Lazard's history – he was a testament to how wisdom, warmth and unwavering judgment could shape not only companies but people's lives,” the company said. “His legacy lives on in the countless leaders he advised, the institutions he renewed and the doors he opened for others.”
Parsons was known as a skilled negotiator, diplomat and crisis manager.
Although he stayed at Time Warner because of the difficulties with AOL, he earned respect for the company and rebuilt relations with Wall Street. He streamlined Time Warner's structure, reduced debt and sold Warner Music Group and a book publishing division.
He also 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 president in 1995 after serving as chairman and CEO of Dime Bancorp Inc., one of the largest U.S. thrifts.
In 2001, after AOL used its fortune as the largest Internet access provider in the US to buy Time Warner stock for $106 billion, Parsons became co-chief operating officer to AOL CEO Robert Pittman. In that role, he was in charge of the company's content activities, including film studios and music recordings.
He became CEO in 2002 with the retirement of Gerald Levin, one of the key architects of that merger. Parsons was named chairman of Time Warner the following year, replacing AOL founder Steve Case, who also favored the combination.
The newly formed company's Internet division quickly became a drag on 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 from cable TV and telephone companies.
Parsons stepped down as CEO in 2007 and as 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 company. Time Warner is now owned by AT&T Inc.
Parsons had served as a board member of Citigroup and its predecessor, Citibank, since 1996, and was appointed chairman in 2009 at a time of turmoil for the financial institution. Citigroup had suffered five consecutive quarters of losses and received $45 billion in government aid. The board was criticized for allowing the bank to invest so heavily in the risky housing market.
Citigroup returned to profit under Parsons from 2010 and would not suffer another quarterly loss until the fourth quarter of 2017. Parsons retired in 2012.
In 2014, he acted 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 transformational leader and a giant of the media industry who led with integrity and never backed down from a challenge,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
Parsons, a Republican, previously worked as a lawyer for Nelson Rockefeller, a former Republican governor of New York, and in Gerald Ford's White House. Those early periods gave him a grounding in politics and negotiations. He also served as an economic adviser to President Barack Obama's transition team.
Parsons, whose love of jazz led to co-owning a jazz club in Harlem, also served as chairman 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.
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This obituary was written primarily by the late Associated Press reporter Anick Jesdanun, who died in 2020.
