Steven Haft is an American media executive, attorney, and film producer.
Biography
Haft was born in
Manhattan and raised in
Flushing, Queens
Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the ...
, the son of Helen (née Urdang) and Nathan "Nuddy" Haft. He is a graduate of
Hofstra University School of Law
The Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University (commonly known as Hofstra Law) is a law school located in Hempstead, New York on Long Island, affiliated with Hofstra University. Founded in 1970 and accredited by the ABA in 1971, th ...
and is a member of The Bar of the U. S. Supreme Court.
After school, Haft produced films for over twenty years including ''
Jakob the Liar
''Jakob the Liar'' is a 1999 American war comedy-drama film directed by Peter Kassovitz, produced by Steven Haft, Marsha Garces Williams and written by Kassovitz and Didier Decoin. The film is based on the book of the same name by Jurek Becker ...
'' and ''
Dead Poets Society.''
In 2000, he accepted a position with
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
where he served as Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for their $1.2 billion in sales Interactive Marketing Group.
He left AOL to found the media consultancy company Indyworks, which focuses on the impact of emerging technologies on media. His clients included
Comcast Cable, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the
College Television Network, AirMedia,
Edelman Edelman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Abram Wolf Edelman (a.k.a. Abraham Edelman; 1832–1907), Polish-born American rabbi; the first rabbi in Los Angeles, California
* Adam Edelman (born 1991), American-born four-time Is ...
, and
Burson-Marstellar.
He presently serves as Senior Vice President of Innovation for magazine publisher
Time Inc.
Philanthropy and civic service
Haft has been involved in environmental issues, human rights and arts in education since the 1970s.
He served on the Board of United States variant of the TerraMar Project, which was a United Nations NGO that promoted the Clean Oceans provision of the Sustainable Development Goals program.
Haft served on the board until TerraMar (US) announced that it had ended operations on July 12, 2019 after the sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein, associate of Ghislaine Maxwell, became public.
He is an Advisory Board Member of the Global Partnerships Forum, which serves as an intermediary linking business entities, government agencies, and the United Nations to develop shared goals and efforts.
Haft is an elected Member of the Motion Picture Academy and Trustee Emeritus of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute; and was appointed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the Board of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Corporation.
He serves as Vice Chair of the Presidential Scholars Foundation, is a STEM.org, STEM Advisor to the Center for the Study of The Presidency & Congress, and has done work for the John D. Rockefeller IIIrd Fund, the John Hay Whitney Foundation, the United Automobile Workers, and the ACLU.
He was a co-founder of the original Earth Day in 1970.
Personal life
He is divorced from author Lisa Birnbach;
they have three children.
He attended the Modern Orthodox Jewish synagogue Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan.
Filmography
He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.
Film
;As writer
Television
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haft, Steven
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesspeople
American film producers
American mass media company founders
20th-century American Jews
AOL people
Maurice A. Deane School of Law alumni
Filmmakers who won the Best Film BAFTA Award
Film producers from New York (state)
People from Manhattan
21st-century American Jews
Jewish American film producers