Time Warner has announced that its Board of Directors has elected former Harvard Law School Dean Robert C. Clark to join on the Board in January 2004 and serve on its Nominating and Governance Committee and its Audit and Finance Committee.
Ambassador Carla A. Hills, who chairs Time Warner’s Nominating and Governance Committee, said: “We’re delighted that Professor Clark has agreed to bring his widely recognized expertise in corporate governance and his experience as an academic leader and corporate director to our Board. We have built a solid record of corporate governance at our company, having adopted a number of practices – such as regular executive sessions of outside directors, a formal corporate governance policy, and enabling our independent committees to retain their own advisers – long before they became regulatory requirements. We believe that Bob Clark will help us build on that record, while making a valuable contribution as a well-rounded member of our Board.”
Dick Parsons, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, said: “Bob Clark is not only a recognized authority in corporate governance, but also has served as a corporate director and as the highly successful chief executive of one of the world’s leading academic institutions. He will bring to our Board the benefit of those experiences, as well as his personal strengths as an individual of remarkable thoughtfulness, intellect, integrity and judgment. Bob Clark is also the first new Director of our company since the merger in 2001, and his appointment is indicative of the caliber of individuals our Nominating and Governance Committee is interested in bringing onto our Board.”
Professor Clark said: “I’m honored to join Time Warner’s board of directors. Time Warner is one of the leading companies in the world, and I look forward to working closely with my distinguished colleagues in helping to guide the company as it moves forward.”
An experienced leader and authority on corporate law, Professor Clark was the Dean and Royall Professor of Law at Harvard Law School from 1989 through July 2003. Under Clark’s leadership as Dean, the Law School more than quadrupled its endowment, strengthened its curriculum and research programs, expanded the faculty and significantly improved its student-faculty ratio. He now serves as the Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and is the author of the textbook, Corporate Law, as well as numerous articles on the subject.
An experienced director, Professor Clark is a member of the Board of Trustees of Teachers Insurance Annuity Association (“TIAA”), the largest private pension plan in the U.S., and he serves on the TIAA-CREF Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility committees, while also chairing TIAA-CREF’s new committee on Internal Governance. In addition, he serves on the board of directors and audit committees of two other public companies, Omnicom Group and Collins & Aikman.
Prior to his 14-year tenure as Dean of Harvard Law School, Professor Clark consulted for law firms and government agencies, and he testified before various Congressional committees and subcommittees on regulation of financial institutions. From 1972 to 1974, Professor Clark was an associate with the Boston law firm of Ropes and Gray, where his practice involved commercial and corporate law. After his law firm experience, Professor Clark spent four years on the faculty of Yale Law School, where he became a tenured professor. In 1979, he returned to Harvard Law School as a professor of law.
A graduate of Maryknoll College, Professor Clark received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School. Clark was born in 1944 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is married to Kathleen Tighe Clark and they have two children.
With Professor Clark’s election to the Board, the Time Warner Board now consists of 14 members: Dick Parsons, James Barksdale, Stephen Bollenbach, Steve Case, Frank Caufield, Miles Gilburne, Ambassador Carla Hills, Reuben Mark, Michael Miles, Ken Novack, Franklin Raines, Ted Turner and Francis Vincent.
