Michael Eisner

Bio | Videos | Books

Website:	http://www.michaeleisner.com/

Creativity In Leadership & Partnerships

Former CEO, Walt Disney Company & Best-Selling Author, Working Together & Work in Progress

Why Great Partnerships Succeed: What works in business and what doesn't work
The Creative Economy: How an intangible asset like creativity can make a dramatic impact
Leadership: Succeeding by failing and other paradoxes
The Power of Ideas: How to recognize the rewards of creative risk
The Furious Pace of Change: Keeping your company nimble and agile

Bio

Michael D. Eisner joined The Walt Disney Company as Chairman and CEO in 1984. In twenty-one years at its helm, he revitalized and reinvented Disney into a full spectrum entertainment enterprise. Under his leadership, the company began implementation of a continuing series of creative growth strategies that resulted in its annual revenues rising from $1.7 billion to more than $30 billion. Michael Eisner continues to be an Entertainment Innovator. His investment company Tornante launched Vuguru, a studio producing original programming for the Internet, portable media devices and cellphones.

Mr. Eisner has been a leader in the entertainment industry for nearly forty years helping to shape this key area of the American economy. He began his career at ABC, where he ran Daytime and Children's Programs, putting on the air All My Children, One Life to Live, the ABC Afterschool Specials and the Scholastic's School House Rock series. He rose to Senior Vice President of prime time production and development, taking the network from number three to number one with such landmark shows as Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Welcome Back, Kotter, Barney Miller, Starsky and Hutch and Mod Squad, and co-created the concept of original movies for television (The Movie of the Week) and the Novel and Mini Series form (Rich Man Poor Man and Roots).

In 1977, Mr. Eisner became President of Paramount Pictures leading the studio to number one in box office and profitability with such films as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Star Trek, Reds, Heaven Can Wait, Ordinary People, Flash Dance, Footloose and Terms of Endearment.

Eisner is the author of two books, Work in Progress, which he co-authored with Tony Schwartz, about his involvement in the entertainment industry, and Camp about the life lessons that come from leading a canoe expedition or sitting around a campfire.

Mr. Eisner graduated from The Lawrenceville School in 1960 and Denison University in 1964 with a Bachelor's of Arts in English literature and theater. He serves on the boards of the California Institute of the Arts, Denison University, the American Hospital of Paris Foundation, the Aspen Institute and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. He is also a member of both The Business Council and the Yale University School of Architecture Dean’s Council. He has established and funded The Eisner Foundation, a philanthropic organization headed by his wife of 40 years, Jane. He lives with Jane in Los Angeles and they have three sons, Breck, Eric and Anders. Breck, a director, helmed his first major movie in 2005, Sahara.