William Franklin Baker is an American television executive. He is Executive in Residence at Columbia University School of Business, Journalist in Residence at Fordham University

Fordham University

Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...

 and the Claudio Aquaviva Chair at the Graduate School of Education, and President Emeritus of Educational Broadcasting Corporation, parent company of WNET-TV (Channel Thirteen) and WLIW-TV (Channel 21), where he served for 20 years as Chief Executive Officer. He has been called an icon of public television for producing some of the industry’s most respected and popular programs, including Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers Journal, Nature, Cyberchase, and Great Performances. In 2008, he was appointed as a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations

Hauser center for nonprofit organizations

The Harvard University Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, located in Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, promotes teaching, scholarship, and service to the nonprofit sector across the university. The Center's concerns include philanthropy, nonprofit organizations,...

 at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

Biography

Prior to public broadcasting, Bill Baker was President of Westinghouse Television and Chairman of Group W. Satellite Communications for almost a decade. During his tenure as Chairman the Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

 and the Disney Channel

Disney Channel

Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...

 were launched, and he got Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

 started as a television talk show host. Frequently sought out as an expert on the media, he is also the author of Down the Tube: An Inside Account of the Failure of American Television (Basic Books, 1998) and the executive producer of a documentary film, The Face: Jesus in Art.

Baker, and his friend Michael O'Malley of Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 have co-authored the book Leading With Kindness.

Using engaging stories featuring leaders from a range of organizations—Pitney Bowes, Tupperware, The Blackstone Group, Eileen Fisher Clothing, GE, Smucker’s, Walt Disney, Rodale Publishing, the Juilliard School, John Deere, Time Warner, and Burt’s Bees among them—LEADING WITH KINDNESS shows how kind leaders reinforce expectations for employees by establishing clear boundaries, telling the truth and encouraging growth through risk-taking.

Baker and O’Malley culminate with a look toward developing tomorrow’s leaders, the independent-minded Generation Y. As the authors demonstrate, today’s business leaders must instill four qualities in their successors to ensure success: self-confidence, self-control, self-awareness, and self-determination. Compelling and realistic, LEADING WITH KINDNESS leads the way to a prosperous and proud future for America.

Awards and honors

Among numerous honors, he has won seven Emmys and two Columbia Dupont Journalism awards, and was named to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Management Hall of Fame and the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 in 2005.

External links

• http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/cbs-directory/detail/151877/William+Baker
• http://www.thirteen.org/blogs/