February 27, 2025
Dick mentored younger individuals, and took a particular curiosity in youthful, aspiring Black women and men.
Written by Marc Feigen
Because the New York and American enterprise communities mourn the passing of Richard “Dick” Parsons, Feigen Advisors additionally mourns the lack of the chairman of our agency’s Advisory Board and our agency’s first buddy. In our founding years, Dick offered invaluable seed capital: his good title. Dick launched our younger agency to the Fortune 250. He endorsed all our purchasers, taking a particular curiosity in serving to newly appointed CEOs. And he endorsed me. Our ideas and condolences are with Laura Parsons and their youngsters and grandchildren.
Dick was not simply calm underneath strain; he grew calmer because the strain rose. His calm introduced calm to others. His incisive thoughts introduced readability to the complicated. His spoken phrase was magical, usually with a convincing and surprising dimension. At 6’4”, most everybody regarded as much as him; along with his James Earl Jones baritone, everybody listened to him. Along with his massive and heat smile, the glint in his eye, and a fist bump, he was your buddy.
Dick ran to the hearth. Financial savings & Mortgage disaster? Dick is chosen to run the Dime Financial savings and Mortgage. The most important failed merger in historical past? Dick is requested to be CEO of AOL-Time Warner. The proprietor of the LA Clippers ridicules his gamers with ugly and racist remarks? The NBA calls Dick off the bench to guide the crew.
His biggest legacy was saving Citigroup from insolvency. “Marc,” Dick stated to me in an elevator financial institution, “we’ve got acquired simply six weeks. And I don’t know if we are able to make it.” The White Home had simply requested Dick to turn into chairman of Citigroup because the monetary disaster reached its gravest second. Dick knew there have been different leaders the President may have chosen with a deeper mixture of economic, regulatory, or restructuring experience to guide Citi. However President Obama selected correctly. By agreeing to guide Citigroup — the failure of the $3 trillion financial institution may have prompted an financial despair -– Dick’s selfless instance bred selflessness, simply as his calm bred calm. By drive of will, he acquired bankers and regulators to compromise. He changed lots of the Citigroup board of administrators. He directed the work of the CEO. He set the objectives, discovered frequent floor, and dismissed those that protected their very own positions.
Whereas at regulation faculty, Dick completed second in the US within the nationwide Moot Courtroom competitors. Which may have been the final time he got here in second. The Dime was saved; Citigroup survived and grew once more; he bought the Clippers to Steve Balmer. When the activist shareholder Carl Icahn held a information convention on the roof of St Regis asserting his alternative to exchange Dick as CEO of Time Warner, a showy affair attended by a whole lot (I used to be there), Dick later walked over to Icahn’s workplace to fulfill. “Carl,” he stated. “Good get together. However you simply don’t have the votes. I’ve the votes.” On one other go to, it occurred to be Carl’s birthday, so Dick introduced in a birthday cake. Carl found that Dick did have the votes. Carl made a deal and went away. (However Dick Parsons did sing him Completely happy Birthday.)
After I based Feigen Advisors, I requested Dick to chair our advisory board. He stated, “come by my workplace”, which I did, bringing our marketing strategy. Low-volume jazz performed within the background; a big Bugs Bunny sat by his desk overlooking Central Park. He learn our marketing strategy. Placing it down and pointing to me, he stated, “Clint Eastwood.” Pointing to himself, he stated, “Morgan Freeman.” Pointing to the 2 of us, he stated, “Million Greenback Child.”
When assembly our agency’s purchasers, he would inform them, “The CEO has just one pure predator. The Board.” He would cost our new CEOs to work towards their legacy from day one. He would inform our agency’s purchasers: “You could have solely two jobs as CEO. Depart your organization in nice form and in good arms.”
Dick advised tales like Lincoln advised tales. Listed below are a couple of:
- “One 12 months, my CFO stated we couldn’t signal the monetary statements, which the CFO and CEO are required by regulation to do. I knew that if we didn’t signal, we’d go bankrupt. And so, I signed.”
- Invited to dine with Completely happy and David Rockefeller at their dwelling on the Hudson River, Dick picked up the finger bowl and began to drink it. “I believed it was soup! We didn’t have finger bowls within the Bronx.”
- As Chairman of Citigroup, he volunteered to inform Donald Trump that the financial institution was pulling his loans. “So, I walked over to see The Donald” (Dick appreciated to go to individuals of their places of work or ask individuals to “come by his workplace” -– recalling a time when New York leaders would go to one another to indicate respect). “I advised Trump we’re pulling his loans. Trump stated, ‘You possibly can’t try this!’ I stated, ‘I simply did’.”
- After his first day of labor as CEO of Time Warner, he got here dwelling and requested his spouse, “Nicely, I’ve carried out that job now. I’ve nothing extra to show. Can I stop now?”
- He referred to as Citigroup the “land of the right query.” In case you didn’t phrase the query excellent, you wouldn’t get the reply. When he requested within the disaster, “Do we’ve got collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)?” he was advised, “No, sir!” Solely later did he study that Citigroup had billions of {dollars} of leverage on one other sort of subprime mortgage safety; it simply wasn’t a CDO.
The transferring obituaries about Dick seize his work as a CEO. However in his much less seen boardroom management at The Estee Lauder Corporations Inc., Lazard, CBS, Citigroup, and others, he was usually the director who resolved disagreement, maybe with an particularly logical perception that caught the Board’s consideration and introduced individuals collectively. His hand was at all times raised, whether or not to affix or lead a particular committee or to have a very robust face-to-face assembly. He labored the phone between board classes — as he would say, “main not from the entrance -– that’s the CEO’s job, however from the center.” (He revealed a few of his recommendation within the “Board’s Quiet Revolution,” a 2014 article we wrote in The Harvard Enterprise Evaluation.)
Dick was reserved and even stoic about his sickness, however after I suffered from long-COVID, he knew after I was doing higher and after I was not. He was genuinely happy that I might get higher, at the same time as we each quietly knew the prognosis for him was not good. He talked so much about his spouse (“When Carl Icahn referred to as me names,” I stated, “Maintain on, Carl. Solely my spouse is allowed to say that!”). He had the proud Dad look when discussing his youngsters, arrange his daughter in a bookstore, and beloved being a grandpa.
He had the most effective shopper record of any lawyer in New York, the world’s authorized capital. Estee Lauder herself, David and Completely happy Rockefeller, Ronald Lauder, and Shari Redstone had been amongst his many main purchasers. His purchasers turned his mates, and he stood by them. Shari texted me final night about Dick, “He was so past superb: particular, intuitive, caring. He had all of it. I by no means wished anybody by my aspect greater than Dick.”
When Ron Williams and I interviewed Dick for our analysis on The CEO’s Information to Retirement, right here is Dick: “I counsel retiring CEOs to provide again. As residents, we owe again to our society. We have now to assist the platform. In America, a lot of what makes issues work is volunteer exercise reasonably than government-directed or business exercise. Being an total good citizen is being engaged in civil society and serving to handle the allocation of society’s bounty.” Dick mentored younger individuals and took a particular curiosity in youthful, aspiring Black women and men.
He was chairman of the Rockefeller Basis, chairman of the Apollo Theater, co-chair of the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition, chairman of the Jazz Basis of America, trustee of the Museum of Fashionable Artwork, chair of The Partnership for New York Metropolis, member of the board of the World Commerce Heart Memorial Basis, and a member of the Fee of Presidential Debates.
He invested in Harlem, re-opening Minton’s, the historic Harlem jazz playhouse the place bebop was created, and opened Cecil’s subsequent door to Minton’s, serving African-inspired delicacies. One was fortunate to get a desk. He had a winery, too, and was beneficiant in making a gift of prized classic bottles of his well-regarded Il Palazzone, a Tuscan Brunello, at Christmas. Many urged him to run for Mayor of New York.
Dick Parsons deserved his surname. Extensively beneficiant along with his influence and privately beneficiant along with his time, Dick achieved for himself what he advised younger individuals: “Be the one others admire.” He advised tales, not sermons, however these of us fortunate sufficient to be mentored by him, though we knew we may by no means be like him, took inspiration from Dick to behave with braveness. We realized when to confront and when to finesse and to at all times suppose and converse with precision. Dick’s life and his work share the best way to navigate life’s hardest terrain: with braveness, with intelligence, with resolve, with stability, and holding true to an moral compass.
Marc Feigen serves as CEO of Feigen Advisors in New York Metropolis.