Brian Goldner
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Brian David Goldner (April 21, 1963 – October 11, 2021) was an American business chief executive and film producer. He was the
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of the American toy and media company
Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of ...
from 2008 until his death.


Early life

Goldner was born on April 21, 1963, in
Huntington, New York The Town of Huntington is one of ten towns in Suffolk County, New York. Founded in 1653, it is located on the north shore of Long Island in northwestern Suffolk County, with Long Island Sound to its north and Nassau County adjacent to the west. ...
, the son of Marjorie (Meyer), an investment adviser, and Norman Goldner, who worked at a power management company, Eaton. He attended Huntington High School and
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
in
Hanover, New Hampshire Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of Eng ...
, where he majored in politics. There he practiced public speaking and was also a radio
disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...
.


Career

Goldner began his career as a marketing assistant at a healthcare firm in
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
in 1985. In 1997, Goldner was set to head the entertainment accountant division of advertisement holding company JWT, but he was lured away by
Bandai is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...
. Goldner was working at
Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of ...
's
Tiger Electronics Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld LCD games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as ''Brain Warp'' and the Br ...
unit in 2000, after the company had lost 5,000 jobs. By 2003, the company recovered on the stock market, and in 2008 Goldner became Hasbro's
chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...
and in 2015 he was appointed chairman of the board. He served as
executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...
on the successful 2007 ''
Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, suc ...
'' film adaptation, which was credited with broadening Hasbro into a character-based multimedia company. He continued this role on the 2009 films '' Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'' and '' G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra''. Goldner was responsible for making Hasbro a licensee of Disney's Marvel Universe characters. Goldner compared the move of these characters to cinema during his tenure to the way they had expanded from mere adverts to television series in the 1980s. In 2012, Goldner's pay package was estimated to be around $9.68 million. In 2008, the year of his promotion, Goldner was named CEO of the year by
MarketWatch MarketWatch is a website that provides financial information, business news, analysis, and stock market data. Along with ''The Wall Street Journal'' and ''Barron's'', it is a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, a property of News Corp. Histor ...
.


Personal life

Goldner married Barbara, a social worker. The couple had a daughter, Brooke, and a son, Brandon, who died in 2015. In 2017, a park playground in
Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, was renamed "Brandon's Beach". In August 2020, Goldner disclosed that he had
prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...
and had been receiving treatment for this condition since 2014. He took an immediate leave of absence as CEO of Hasbro for medical reasons on October 10, 2021, and died a day later, at his home in
Barrington, Rhode Island Barrington is a suburban, residential town in Bristol County, Rhode Island located approximately southeast of Providence. It was founded by Congregationalist separatists from Swansea, Massachusetts and incorporated in 1717. Barrington was ceded ...
, at age 58.


Filmography


As a producer

* '' G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra'' (2009) * ''
Battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
'' (2012) * '' G.I. Joe: Retaliation'' (2013) * ''
Jem and the Holograms ''Jem'', also known as ''Jem and the Holograms'', is an American animated musical television series that ran from 1985 to 1988. The series is about record company owner Jerrica Benton, her singer alter-ego Jem, and the adventures of Jem and her ...
'' (2015) * '' Ouija: Origin of Evil'' (2016) * '' My Little Pony: The Movie'' (2017) * '' Snake Eyes'' (2021, final role as producer) * '' Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves'' (2023, posthumous credit)


As an executive producer

* ''
Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, suc ...
'' (2007) * '' Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'' (2009) * '' Transformers: Dark of the Moon'' (2011) * '' Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless'' (2011) * ''Clue'' (TV, 2011–2012) * '' Transformers: Age of Extinction'' (2014) * ''
Ouija The ouija ( , ), also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the Latin alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along with various symbols and grap ...
'' (2014) * '' Transformers: The Last Knight'' (2017) * '' Hanazuki: Full of Treasures (short film)'' (2017) * ''
Bumblebee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related gener ...
'' (2018) * ''
Power Rangers Beast Morphers ''Power Rangers Beast Morphers'' are the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh seasons of the American television program ''Power Rangers''. The first season premiered on Nickelodeon on March 2, 2019, while the second season premiered on February 22, 20 ...
'' (TV, 2019) * '' My Little Pony: A New Generation'' (Direct-to-video streaming, 2021, final role as executive producer)


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldner, Brian 1963 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American businesspeople American chief executives of manufacturing companies American chief operating officers Dartmouth College alumni Deaths from cancer in Rhode Island Deaths from prostate cancer Film producers from New York (state) People from Barrington, Rhode Island People from Huntington, New York