Richard Parsons, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa alumnus who became one of America’s most prominent Black corporate executives, died December 26 at the age of 76. Parsons, who led both Time Warner and Citigroup during critical periods, died from complications related to multiple myeloma, according to media reports.
The Brooklyn, New York native’s path to corporate leadership began at UH Mānoa, where he enrolled at age 16 and studied history from 1964 to 1968.
“I grew up on that campus (UH Mānoa) and it was a gorgeous place to go to college,” Parsons told UH’s Mālamalama magazine in 2003. “After Brooklyn, Hawaiʻi was paradise on earth. The people were friendly, and the weather was always accommodating.”
After attending UH Mānoa alongside his future wife, Laura Bush Parsons, he enrolled at Albany Law School, where he ranked first in his class in 1971. His career trajectory included serving as a White House aide during the Ford administration before entering corporate leadership.
As Time Warner’s CEO from 2002 to 2007, Parsons navigated the company through the troubled aftermath of its merger with AOL. He later helped restore stability at Citigroup as chairman from 2009 to 2012, steering the bank through its recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Parsons often credited his time in Hawaiʻi with helping to shape his approach to managing complex organizations.
- Related UH News story: Richard Parsons, UH Mānoa alumnus, named CBS interim chairman of the board, September 26, 2018
“As an African-American, I was struck by the ethnic diversity I saw all around me. At Hawaiʻi, we studied and socialized among all the different shapes, sizes, religions and races of the world,” Parsons said. “It was East meets West, and it was a terrific place to begin discovering how other people think. I learned a lot of lessons there about how to interact with people of different backgrounds, and those lessons would stand me in good stead during my later career as a manager. You can’t motivate or inspire employees—and we have 90,000 employees at AOL Time Warner—if you don’t understand where they’re coming from and how they think.”
Parsons maintained strong ties to UH throughout his career. He returned to UH Mānoa as a commencement speaker in 2003 and served as the Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals in 2009, delivering lectures on the global financial crisis. He was also awarded a UH Distinguished Alumni Award in 1997 and a UH Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2003.
He is survived by his wife Laura and their family.
