The man who saved Time Warner

Richard D. Parsons is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Inc., and only one of a very limited number of black executives to run a Fortune 500 Company.

Since Parsons became CEO in May 2002 and Chairman of the Board in May 2003, He has been trying to cleanup the mess Time Warner found itself in after the merger with AOL at the height of the dot.com bubble. A task he has had great success with by working through Time Warner’s problems one by one.

He reduced a $25 billion debt load by selling off businesses, including Warner Music Group, in March, 2004, for $2.6 billion. Settle two federal investigations into accounting practices at AOL by paying more than $500 million in settlement charges. And then on Aug. 3, as part of reporting second-quarter earnings, Parsons announced he was putting aside $3 billion to settle private shareholder suits related to AOL.

However after accomplishing all this some still question if Parsons is the man to run Time Warner Inc. They say things like; he’s performed great up to this point but he might not have the vision to move the company forward.

Mr. Parsons has taken Time Warner; a company that was so messed up when he took the helm and turn it into a working machine again.

Parsons has performed amazingly well up to this point in his post and I’m betting he will come out with the right plan at the right time for the future of Time Warner Inc.