Robert C. Wright

WHAT HE DOES
For 21 years, Bob Wright ran General Electric’s entertainment properties, beginning in 1986, when the company had only NBC. He presided over the merger with Vivendi Universal, which created the NBC Universal division in 2003. In February 2007, he announced his retirement and his plan to hand over the reins to Jeffrey Zucker.

WHAT HE’S KNOWN FOR
Though he came from G.E.’s financial-services division (which made him the butt of many David Letterman jokes), Wright was tapped by Jack Welch, then C.E.O. of G.E., to run the company’s new acquisition in 1986. He weathered a rocky transition amid suspicions that he was out of his league, putting his knowledge of selling toasters aside and developing an affinity for Friends and telenovelas. He ushered the company into the cable age with CNBC and MSNBC, and kept the other broadcast networks at bay with a killer Thursday-night lineup that included Seinfeld and ER.

In 2002, Wright snapped up Telemundo, the country’s second-largest Spanish-language network, and the following year he orchestrated a $14 billion deal to acquire Vivendi Universal. But his splashy mergers couldn’t salvage ratings; after Friends ended, NBC’s prime-time dominance faltered. The network started to rebound in 2006 with the breakout hit Heroes, but that came as Wright was passing control of the $16 billion powerhouse to Zucker.

Wright’s management style has been characterized as paternalistic, and during his tenure he cultivated relationships with NBC headliners Johnny Carson, Conan O’Brien, and Tom Brokaw. One of his main concerns has been piracy, an “epidemic” he talks about with the fervor that Al Gore brings to climate change. At a conference co-hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2007, he warned, “Just as the issue of global warming is now starting to capture the attention of businesses and governments around the world, so is the issue of counterfeiting and piracy.”
 
WHERE HE COMES FROM
Raised Catholic on Long Island, New York, Wright graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and the University of Virginia Law School. He joined G.E. as a staff attorney in 1969.

WHERE HE’S GOING
Wright stepped down from his role as chairman of the NBC Universal board in May. His grandson is autistic, and two years ago he and his wife, Suzanne, founded Autism Speaks, an operation he runs with the deftness that carried him through his years at NBC. He has already merged Autism Speaks with three of the nation’s largest autism organizations, and he wasn’t afraid to use his clout to get the organization on a season finale of The Apprentice in which contestants were charged with organizing a fundraiser. The publicity brought in nearly $100,000. It looks like retirement for Wright will be business as usual.