Who

Dick Parsons is the chairman of Time Warner and a possible political candidate. He handed over the job of chief executive to Jeff Bewkes in early 2008.

Backstory

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, Parsons headed off to the University of Hawaii at the age of 16 and played on the school's basketball team, before returning East to attend law school. His legal career started off in the public sector: He worked as a legal aide to Nelson Rockefeller when he served as governor, later moving with Rockefeller to Washington when he was elected vice president under Gerald Ford. Parsons returned to the city after his stint in politics and joined the firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler—he was hired by Harold Tyler, who had worked in the Ford administration (and is the man who gave Rudy Giuliani his legal start). Parsons remained at the firm until 1988, when he left to join one of his clients, Dime Savings Bank, as chief operating officer.

He was elevated to CEO of Dime right around the time he joined the board of Time Warner. In 1995, he traded banking for media when Time Warner's chief executive at the time, Jerry Levin, convinced him to join the company as president. The two worked together to carry out one of the most disastrous mergers in recent history, the marriage of AOL and Time Warner at the height of the dotcom bubble. Parsons somehow managed to avoid the resulting fallout and was named Levin's successor in 2001, then took over as CEO in May 2002. He stepped down and turned the top job over to his successor, Jeff Bewkes, in January 2008.

Of note

Although Parsons survived the ill-fated merger of AOL and Time Warner—blame fell on Levin, Steve Case, and Bob Pittman, who was once in line for the top job himself—Parsons had his work cut out for him when he moved into the CEO suite in 2002. He tried to lift the stumbling media giant out of the doldrums with initiatives both purely symbolic (he dropped "AOL" from the name in 2003) and substantive: To bolster the bottom line, he shed unprofitable businesses such as Time Warner's struggling music subsidiary (sold to Edgar Bronfman Jr. and several private equity firms for $2.6 billion) and the Time Warner Book Group (sold to Hachette for $538 million in 2006).

His efforts to improve operations, which included steep cutbacks in a number of divisions, didn't prove substantial enough for some shareholders. In 2006, he was caught in a messy battle with financier Carl Icahn (and his chief advisor Bruce Wasserstein) who agitated for the break-up of the company into four stand-alone operating units. Parsons survived the assault, but it was clear that Time Warner had to restructure its business if it was going to boost its image with Wall Street investors. Fortunately for Parsons, he didn't have to worry about the messy task ahead. As part of his longstanding succession plan, he announced his departure in 2007 and handed over the reins to his No. 2, Jeff Bewkes, in early 2008. Parsons remains Time Warner's chairman, but it's now up to Bewkes to deal with the headache of reorganizing the company and reviving its stock price. (Bewkes has since announced the first major strategic shift, the spin-off of Time Warner Cable.) Parsons, meanwhile, now has time to pursue the political ambitions he's long been nursing. He's expected to throw his hat in the ring for mayor in 2009.

Campaign trail

A liberal Republican, Parsons supported both Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in their campaigns for mayor and served on both of their transition teams. He supports the occasional Dem, too. He endorsed Eliot Spitzer for governor in 2006.

Board game

The chairman of the board of the Apollo Theatre Foundation, Parsons is also involved in a handful of Rockefeller charitable endeavors: He's a trustee of the family's philanthropic fund, chairman emeritus of the Partnership for New York City (which was established by David Rockefeller in 1979), and on the board of Museum of Modern Art (which was originally endowed by members of the Rockefeller clan). He's a major presence on corporate boards as well. Old pal Sandy Weill recruited him to sit on the board of Citigroup. Leonard Lauder invited him to join the board of directors of Estée Lauder. Parsons' ties to the Lauders run deep: He represented Mrs. Lauder on numerous occasions when he practiced law in the '70s and '80s, and serves as executor of the Lauder family estate.

Personal

Dick met his wife, Laura Bush Parsons, as an undergrad. She's a child psychologist, and the couple have three children. The Parsons live in a duplex penthouse in Tribeca and spend weekends on Block Island. Vacations are spent at Parsons' 20-acre winery in Tuscany. The property produces a handful of vintages which retail in the U.S.—you can pick up a bottle of "Il Palazzone Brunello di Montalcino," for example, for $80. Just look for the mock crest of the Parsons family.