Christie Hefner | |
|---|---|
 Hefner at the Hilton Chicago in 2007 | |
| Born | November 8, 1952 |
| Alma mater | Brandeis University |
| Occupation | Publisher |
| Known for | Playboy Enterprises |
| Spouse | |
| Parent(s) | Hugh Hefner Mildred Williams |
| Relatives | Cooper Hefner (half-brother) |
Christie Ann Hefner (born November 8, 1952) is an American businesswoman. She was chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises from 1988 to 2009, and is the daughter of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.
Hefner was born in Chicago, Illinois. [1] She is the daughter of Mildred Williams and Hugh Hefner. Her parents had separated by the time she was five. When her mother remarried, she moved to Wilmette, Illinois. There she graduated from New Trier High School. [1] She attended the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, during the summers from 1964 to 1969. [2]
She graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a bachelor's degree in English and American literature in 1974. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year. [3]
After college, she freelanced for the Boston Phoenix for a year, writing movie reviews. Thereafter, she moved back to Chicago and started working at Playboy .
In 1982, she became president of Playboy Enterprises, and was made chairman of the board and CEO in 1988. She was the longest-serving female CEO of a publicly traded company. She extended its magazine franchise overseas, to 25 localized foreign editions and also developed the company's profitable pay television business — the first time a magazine successfully leveraged its brand into a television network. The company also acquired adult-oriented businesses such as Spice Network and ClubJenna. [4] [5]
Continuing the company's electronic expansion, in 1994, Hefner led the company onto the Internet with the launch of Playboy.com, the first national magazine to launch a website, and built an international, profitable, multi-revenue stream business, including premium content, e-commerce, advertising and gaming, both online and mobile. She also built a highly profitable direct marketing, catalog and e-commerce business in film and music through both acquisition and organic growth. Hefner greatly expanded the leveraging of the Playboy brand via licensing. In her last year as CEO, Playboy generated close to $1 billion in global retail sales, 80% of the sales to women. When she left, over 40% of her executives were women. For three years, she was named to Fortune 's list of "Most Powerful Women".
In 2008, she released a memo to employees about her efforts to streamline the company's operations, including eliminating its DVD division and laying off staff. [6]
On December 8, 2008, she announced her plans to step down as CEO of Playboy. [7] Hefner said that the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president had inspired her to give more time to charitable work, and that the decision to step down was her own. "Just as this country is embracing change in the form of new leadership, I have decided that now is the time to make changes in my own life as well", she said. [8] She stepped down from as Playboy CEO on January 30, 2009. [9]
In May 2011, Hefner was named executive chairman of Canyon Ranch Enterprises, a resort company that operates six premier spa destinations and an online website providing health and wellness advice. [10]
As of 2015, Hefner was chairman of the board of Hatchbeauty Brands. [11] [12] Hefner also serves on the advisory boards of the R.D. Offutt company and Edge Beauty.
Christie Hefner is reportedly in the "little black book" belonging to late disgraced pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, where she is listed in the book as one of Epstein's contacts. [13] The book is currently on auction and is expected to fetch up to $200,000 or more. [14] [15]
Hefner created the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in honor of her father, and has helped to raise $30 million to build the CORE Center in Chicago, the first outpatient facility in the Midwest for people with AIDS. [16]
Her non-profit work includes Rush University Center (Trustee/Member), Springboard Enterprises (Advisory Board Member), Center for American Progress Action (Director/Member Audit Committee), Better Government Association (Civic Advisory Committee), and Press Forward (Steering Committee).
Hefner married former Illinois state senator William A. Marovitz, a real estate developer and attorney, in 1995. They divorced in 2013 and have no children. Marovitz was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly using inside information to trade illegally in shares of Playboy. In 2011, he settled out of court for $168,352. [17]
She lives in Chicago and has one brother, David, a computer systems analyst. She also has two half-brothers, Cooper and Marston, from her father's marriage to Kimberley Conrad.[ citation needed ]
Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles. Hefner extended the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He also resided in luxury mansions where Playboy Playmates shared his wild partying life, fueling media interest.
Playboy is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and online since 2020. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
The Playboy Mansion, also known as the Playboy Mansion West, is the former home of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who lived there from 1971 until his death in 2017. Barbi Benton convinced Hefner to buy the home located in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, near Beverly Hills. From the 1970s onward, the mansion became the location of lavish parties held by Hefner which were often attended by celebrities and socialites. It is currently owned by Daren Metropoulos, the son of billionaire investor Dean Metropoulos, and is used for corporate activities. It also serves as a location for television production, magazine photography, charitable events, and civic functions.
PLBY Group, Inc. is an American global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Hefner as Playboy Enterprises, Inc. to oversee the Playboy magazine and related assets. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California.
Thomas Pritzker is an American billionaire heir and businessman. A member of the Pritzker family, he is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Pritzker Organization (TPO), which manages the various Pritzker family business assets. Pritzker is also the executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
Holly Madison is an American television personality, best known as a former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner and for her appearance in the reality television show The Girls Next Door. She also starred in her own reality series, Holly's World, which ran from 2009 to 2011. She has released two books, Down the Rabbit Hole in 2015, about her life in the Playboy Mansion and her relationship with Hefner, and The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention in 2016.
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture is a 2005 book by Ariel Levy that critiques the highly sexualized American culture in which women are objectified, objectify one another, and are encouraged to objectify themselves. Levy refers to this as "raunch culture".
Victor Aubrey Lownes III was an executive for HMH Publishing Company Inc., later known as Playboy Enterprises, from 1955 through the early 1980s. Soon after he met Hugh Hefner in 1954, Hefner founded Playboy magazine, and Lownes eventually joined his publishing company, serving as vice president. Lownes was a close confidant of Hefner and gained a reputation for dating Playboy Playmates.
YPO is a US-based organization of chief executives with more than 36,000 members in more than 142 countries.
Kendra Leigh Wilkinson is an American television personality and real estate agent. She first gained recognition as one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends and for her role on the E! reality television series The Girls Next Door (2005–2009), on which her life in the Playboy Mansion was documented. Although not a Playboy Playmate, she has appeared in three nude pictorials with her Girls Next Door co-stars Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt. She subsequently starred in her own reality shows, Kendra (2009–2011) and Kendra on Top (2012–2017).
Hefner or Heffner is a German surname meaning 'potter'. It may refer to:
Leon David Black is an American private equity investor. He is the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990 with Marc Rowan and Josh Harris. Black was the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art from 2018 to 2021.
Crystal Hefner is an American model who was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for December 2009, and the third wife of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner from December 2012 until his death in September 2017.
Abraham Lincoln Marovitz was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
William A. Marovitz is an American lawyer and politician who was involved in real estate in Chicago and was married to Christie Hefner from 1995 to 2013.
Cooper Bradford Hefner is an American businessman. He has worked as the chief creative officer and chief of global partnerships at Playboy Enterprises, a company founded by his father Hugh Hefner. He was also founder and initial chief executive officer of the startup company Hop.
Jerome H. Kern was an American lawyer, investment banker, consultant, and philanthropist. Kern was one of the founding members of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. After a career in investment banking, he served as a senior partner of Shea & Gould, then at Baker Botts, while holding senior leadership positions at Tele-Communications Inc. In the early 2000s, he was CEO of Linkshare, On Command, and Playboy. He was also chairman and CEO of Colorado Symphony and is currently a senior advisor to Moelis & Company.
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