Time Warner Cable CEO Awarded

For playing a key role in reconstructing the entertainment industry, Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jeff Bewkes, received the 2009 Excellence in Leadership Award from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Bewkes is a Stanford graduate, having completed his MBA in 1977. On April 14, the 56-year-old received the excellence award during a ceremony at New York City’s Rainbow Room.

The Stanford Business School understands the significant role that leadership plays in corporate administration. Each year, the school honors a graduate who has greatly contributed to society, and the business world as a whole.

"This award spotlights achievements of alumni who have exhibited the leadership and integrity that we hope all our students demonstrate throughout their careers," stated Robert L. Joss, the Philip H. Knight Professor, and Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "Jeff aspired early to be part of the entertainment industry. His passion for the field has taken him into management roles through which he is innovating the future of content distribution in a rapidly changing industry."

Bewkes began his career in the entertainment industry at NBC, aspiring to become a TV reporter. Instead, Bewkes worked as a researcher for the network, before joining Time Warner’s HBO. In 1979, Bewkes served as a junior finance executive for HBO, a period when merely 10% of the nation had cable television. Bewkes took a significant pay-cut in joining the up-and-coming cable network, but he simply wanted to get his foot in the door. With confidence in HBO’s vision to create a new kind of television, Bewkes climbed the network’s corporate ladder, becoming the CEO of HBO in 1995.

During a 2004 speech at the Stanford Business School, Bewkes said, “you know what HBO is now, but you have to remember that back then, we didn’t know. We had to make it up.”