Who

A longtime General Electric exec, Wright served as chairman and CEO of NBC Universal until February 2007. He was succeeded by Jeff Zucker.

Backstory

Wright was raised on Long Island, and joined GE as a staff attorney in 1969 shortly after passing the bar. After rising up to oversee the company's plastics division, in 1980 he bolted to take a job at the Atlanta-based Cox Cable. He didn't stay away from GE for long: He returned three years later to run the company's housewares unit and by 1986, he'd become president of GE Financial Services. Following GE's 1986 acquisition of NBC for $6.3 billion, Wright took over the television network, replacing Grant Tinker, a changing of the guard that was initially greeted with skepticism by execs in the TV industry, given Wright's status as an outsider and corporate technocrat. (David Letterman famously quipped that his new boss would probably order up a miniseries on the toaster oven.) In fact, Wright ignited a golden age at NBC: He sold off the company's radio assets and invested in cable (like CNBC, which launched in 1989), and although he wasn't picking programming, he oversaw the creative team during NBC's 1990s "Must See TV" heyday, when it consistently dominated primetime thanks to shows like Seinfeld, ER, and Friends.

After nearly selling off NBC in 1994 to Disney, Wright expanded in the mid-'90s with the launch of MSNBC (in partnership with Microsoft), the acquisition of the Spanish-language network Telemundo in 2001, and Bravo in 2002. In 2004, with his more conservative boss no longer minding the purse strings—Jack Welch was replaced by Jeff Immelt in 2001—Wright negotiated his biggest deal yet, picking up Universal's TV and film properties for $14 billion to form NBC Universal.

Of note

A consummate dealmaker and negotiator, Wright saw the tail end of his tenure at NBC pass with considerable less success: Without the stable of hit shows that had once made the network No. 1, NBC tumbled to last in the ratings. And although he was never perceived in the media world as an entertainment guy, and largely focused on business matters, not creative ones, his choice of an heir apparent, Jeff Zucker, looked a little misguided as the network continued to struggle. Nevertheless, when Wright's long-expected retirement came around, he announced that Zucker would fill his shoes and serve as NBC's CEO. Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE and Wright's erstwhile boss, assumed the title of NBC chairman. After staying on as GE's vice chairman, Wright announced he was stepping down altogether in 2008.

Personal

Wright and his wife, Suzanne, have three grown children, Katie, Maggie, and Christopher. They live in Connecticut and have a pied à terre at Trump Place, which they purchased for $10.695 million in 2007; the apartment features five bedrooms and a 500-square-foot terrace with Hudson River views.

Pet cause

The Wrights started the non-profit foundation Autism Speaks on behalf of their grandson, Christian, who is autistic. Wright has publicly clashed with his daughter Katie (Christian's mother) over the cause of autism. Katie, a so-called "Mercury," believes the mercury content in vaccines is to blame, whereas Wright and his wife contend it's a genetic condition. In 2007 Autism Speaks bankrolled a documentary about life with autism, Autism Every Day, in which Christian makes an appearance.

True story

Just how disconnected was Wright from the Hollywood establishment? Some years back, when he accepted an invitation to Vanity Fair's annual Oscar party at Morton's, he and his wife showed up not at Morton's on Melrose, but at Morton's steakhouse on 45th and Fifth in New York.