Jeff Bewkes

Jeff Bewkes

Bewkes at the Time 100 gala, April 24, 2012
Born Jeffrey Lawrence Bewkes
(1952-05-25) May 25, 1952
Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.
Citizenship United States
Occupation Chairman and CEO of Time Warner
Salary $32.5 million FY 2013[1]
Spouse(s)
  • Susan Frank Kelley (1982-1993)
  • Margaret L. Brim (1993-2014)
Children 2
Parent(s) Eugene Garrett Bewkes, Jr.
Marjorie Louise Klenk

Jeffrey Lawrence "Jeff" Bewkes (born May 25, 1952) is an American media executive.[2] He has been CEO of Time Warner since January 1, 2008, President since December 2005, and Chairman of the Board since January 1, 2009.

Early life and education

Bewkes was born in Paterson, New Jersey,[3] the middle son of Marjorie Louise (née Klenk) and Eugene Garrett Bewkes, Jr.,[4] an executive at Norton Simon.[5][6][7] He is of Dutch and German ancestry, was raised in Darien, Connecticut,[8] and is a graduate of Deerfield Academy.[5]

In 1974, he graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. According to college friend Gary Lucas, a guitarist who went on to collaborate with avant-garde acts like Captain Beefheart, said that at Yale in the early 1970s, he fell in with “lunatic fringe types and free thinkers”. Bill Moseley, another college friend who went on to a career in horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, stated, “I think of him as an artist first and foremost”.[9]

Upon graduation, he "tried his hand at documentary work for NBC News" before going to Stanford University to earn his MBA.[5] He sits on both his alma maters' respective advisory boards.[10] After school, he worked at a Sonoma vineyard winery and then took a job in New York City as a commercial banker in Citibank's shipping lending unit.[5][8]

Career

Leaving Citibank, he took a job at HBO then a small unit of Time Inc,[5] where he was tasked with convincing hotels to subscribe to HBO and then sales director responsible for the launch of Cinemax.[8] He rose to become CFO in 1986 and President and COO in 1991. In 1995 he became CEO of HBO, in which capacity he tripled company profits and "oversaw a fundamental shift in its content, away from just movies and fights and toward original shows like The Sopranos".[9]

In 2002, he became chairman of Time Warner’s entertainment and networks group. From 2005 to December 2007, he served as the top subordinate to Time Warner Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons. In 2008, Bewkes was selected as Parsons' successor, becoming CEO of Time Warner, and then Board Chair in 2009.[11]

As CEO of Time-Warner, Bewkes oversees HBO, Turner Broadcasting (CNN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network), Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema, while he oversaw the company's divestment from AOL, Time Inc., and Time Warner Cable. In January 2006, Bewkes and CBS head Les Moonves helped broker the deal that joined the CBS-owned UPN with The WB to form the CW Network.

On behalf of NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Bewkes was one of the chairs of Media.NYC.2020, which reviewed the future of the global media industry, the implications for NYC, and suggested actionable next steps for the NYC government.[12]

Personal life

Bewkes, who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, has been married twice. His first wife was Susan Frank Kelley, a law firm partner specializing in trusts and estates; they had one son.[5] His second wife was Margaret Lowry Brim, a former real estate broker with William B. May Company,[13] who was once a television producer and an aide to ABC president Roone Arledge;[8][14] they had one son.[5] Brim also had one child from her first marriage.[8][15] In November 2013, Bewkes and Brim commenced divorce proceedings,[16] which completed in summer 2014.[17]

References

  1. ↑ "Jeffrey L. Bewkes Profile". Forbes. 2013. Retrieved 2014-07-20.
  2. ↑ "Bewkes, Jeffrey L.". Current Biography Yearbook 2010. Ipswich, MA: H.W. Wilson. 2010. pp. 33–38. ISBN 9780824211134.
  3. ↑ Jon Lafayette, "12 to Watch: Jeffrey Bewkes", TVWeek, January 12, 2008
  4. ↑ "Bewkes-Klenk Wedding Sat, Phoenixville, Pa", St Lawrence Plain Dealer, August 24, 1949
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Michael Cieply and Edmund Sanders, "The Very Model of a Modern Media Manager", Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2003
  6. ↑ "E.G. Bewkes 3d, Belinda Bowling Marry in Darien", New York Times
  7. ↑ Hersam Acorn Newspapers Archives: The Darien Times: Marjorie K. Bewkes Obituary January 25, 2007
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Lloyd Grove, "Lord of These Things - Does sensible technocrat Jeff Bewkes, who spent 28 years rising through the ranks to CEO, have the solution for Time Warner’s problems? (And what if there isn’t one?)", New York Magazine, January 13, 2008
  9. 1 2 Keach Hagey (April 12, 2015). "Behind Time Warner Chief's 'Cord-Cutter' Pitch". Wall Street Journal.
  10. ↑ "Jeffrey L. Bewkes ’74 B.A.", Yale University, retrieved January 6, 2013
  11. ↑ David Carr; Brian Stelter (November 6, 2007). "At Time Warner, Successor to Parsons Emerges". New York Times.
  12. ↑ Strauss, Steven; Kristy Sundjaja; Peter Robinson; Andrew Chen (2012). Media.NYC.2020 (PDF). NYCEDC.
  13. ↑ "Apartment Sales: Mixed Signals", New York Times, February 23, 1992
  14. ↑ "Margaret L. Brim Bride Of Peter McCabe, Writer", New York Times, February 15, 1981
  15. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/15/style/margaret-l-brim-bride-of-peter-mccabe-writer.html
  16. ↑ Emily Smith, "Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, wife to divorce", Page Six, retrieved November 27, 2013
  17. ↑ Bewkes v. Bewkes, No. FST-FA13-4026471-S (Conn. Sup. Ct. June 4, 2014)
Business positions
Preceded by
Richard D. Parsons		 Time-Warner CEO
2008–present 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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