9/11 Board Loses Another Name

^{Richard D. Parsons. Photograph by Chip East/Reuters/Landov}

As the fundraising target has risen at the World Trade Center Memorial Fund, the number of heavy-hitting corporate leaders on its board appears to have shrunk.

The latest director to have stepped down (or at least the latest to be publicly acknowledged to have left): Richard D. Parsons, Time Warner's C.E.O. and a noted philanthropist.

The fund, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is tasked with raising $350 million toward building the World Trade Center memorial, as described in the September issue of Condé Nast Portfolio.

Others who have left the board include Sir John Bond, former chairman of HSBC; Michael Eisner, former C.E.O. and chairman of the Walt Disney Co.; and Henry Kravis, head of private equity firm KKR, who cited business and personal time commitments as the reason for his departure.

Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, and television journalist Barbara Walters have also left the board. Their departures, in 2005, came during the controversy over the International Freedom Center, an interpretive museum that many family members were opposed to placing at the site of the tragedy.

The core of the board membership, announced in 2004, includes leaders from New York's entertainment, financial, government and philanthropic circles. It still has a number of boldface name directors—including Kenneth Chenault of American Express, former AIG chief executive Maurice Greenberg, and the actor Robert DeNiro. It's just that the number is shrinking.

According to the minutes of the board, Parsons last attended a directors meeting on January 10th, 2006. There have been seven meetings since then, including one on January 25, 2007, when Parsons was reelected to serve until 2009. The fund had not officially announced his departure, but did remove his bio from its web site.

Ed Adler, spokesman for Time Warner said, "He left the board about a year ago. He simply had too much on his plate and he had just assumed the role of Chair of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History & Culture."

Lynn Rasic, spokeswoman for the Memorial Fund, "We were sorry to lose Mr. Parsons as a board member, but we are enormously grateful for all of his support to the Memorial Foundation."

Parsons continue to serve on several other boards, including the Apollo Theatre Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, and the American Museum of Natural History.

by Paul Smalera

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