Leo Hindery

Leo Hindery, Jr. is an American businessman, political activist and philanthropist.

Hindery is Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners, a New York-based media industry private equity fund. Until 2004, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The YES Network, the nation’s largest regional sports network which he founded in 2001 as the television home of the New York Yankees.

He headed Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) before it was merged into AT&T in 1999, when he became CEO of AT&T Broadband. Later, he was briefly interim CEO of Global Crossing, a company that underwent bankruptcy recovery due to corporate abuse, although this took place after Hindery left.

In 2004, his name was floated as a possible successor to Terry McAuliffe as head of the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Hindery served as Senior Economic Policy Advisor for presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards from December 2006 until February 2008. He is currently acting as an economic advisor to Senator and Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and from 2003 through December 2007 was Senate-appointed Vice Chair of the HELP Commission formed by an Act of Congress to improve U.S. foreign assistance. He is a Trustee of The New School University, a Director of the Library of Congress Trust Fund, the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council, The Paley Center for Media and Teach for America, and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Mr. Hindery now lives in New York City.

Leo Hindery has written two books, It Takes a CEO. [ [http://www.amazon.com/Takes-CEO-Time-Lead-Integrity/dp/0743269853/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223266298&sr=1-1] ] and The Biggest Game of All. [ [http://www.amazon.com/Biggest-Game-All-Strategies-Temperaments/dp/0743229002 The Biggest Game of All : The Inside Strategies, Tactics, and Temperaments That Make Great Dealmakers Great] ] .

It Takes a CEO received a number of positive reviews. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate,

One of the attributes Hindery says the new breed of CEO needs is courage. It took courage for him to have written It Takes a CEO. This book should be a manual for CEOs, anyone with aspirations to be a CEO, government policymakers and everyone who values the dream of America as a land of opportunity for all.

And according to Amazon.com's review:

Rarely do clarion calls sound this loud. Longtime media-industry executive Leo Hindery, who once headed AT&T and several other large companies, now sees plenty of problems in the modern world, in business and out. He uses his new book, It Takes a CEO to issue both his diagnoses of the ills, and proposed cures. With the expansive tone of a politician, Hindery addresses a wide array of issues: inner-city unemployment, lack of health insurance, violence on television, corporate greed, outsourcing, undermotivated young people, and even, in brief stretches, the growing trend towards obesity in Americans.

Much of Leo Hindery's business and personal life was documented in a book he co-wrote with Leslie Cauley called The Biggest Game of All. [ [http://www.amazon.com/Biggest-Game-All-Strategies-Temperaments/dp/0743229002 The Biggest Game of All : The Inside Strategies, Tactics, and Temperaments That Make Great Dealmakers Great] ] The Economist review of The Biggest Game said the following: [ [http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TGQRVNG The Economist print edition Mar 20th 2003 Books and Arts section] ]

"Mr Hindery organises his insights into a dozen useful tips, though the core lessons can be boiled down to just three: negotiating is a life or death struggle; exploit every loophole, particularly the ones of mind-numbing complexity involving issues like tax benefits and future residuals that hardly anyone understands. Then, in the final moments, when everyone is exhausted, slip in fresh conditions, particularly ones that will inflate your own future compensation. With any luck, these will not be discovered until it is too late. Many intelligent chief executives of high character fail to learn these lessons. They, along with their doomed shareholders, would do well to read this book. It is to the opportunities that they present to the Hinderys of this world that this book should, by all rights, be dedicated."

Booklist Review wrote a very favorable review of this first book:

Booklist ReviewHindery may not be a household name, but when it comes to the top deal makers in big media business, he is right up there with Rupert Murdoch (Fox), Sumner Redstone (Viacom), and Gerald Levin (AOL Time Warner). This former president and CEO of AT & T Broadband has, by his own count, negotiated more than 240 business deals in his career, totaling well in excess of $150 billion, and he has inside knowledge of many more. He describes some of these historical mergers and acquisitions in detail and reveals what motivates the deal makers, for better or worse, to compete in this power-driven and often addictive game. Although he claims to reveal no secrets on how to come up a winner, his "Ten Commandments" of deal making provide a glimpse into what it takes to stand one's ground and compete with the big boys. Hindery brings drama to these stories, whether they are home runs or utter failures, and unless he's hiding behind his poker face, he comes off as a very fair player. David Siegfried