David Bradley | |
|---|---|
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| Born | March 16, 1953 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | Swarthmore College (BA) Harvard Business School (MBA) Georgetown University Law Center (JD) |
David G. Bradley (born March 6, 1953) [1] [2] is a partner in The Atlantic and Atlantic Media, and the owner of the National Journal Group. Before his career as a publisher, Bradley founded the Advisory Board Company and Corporate Executive Board, two consulting companies based in Washington, D.C.
Bradley was born in Washington, D.C., [3] and attended the Sidwell Friends School. His parents were devout Christian Scientists. [2] As a youth he rode horses at Meadowbrook Stables, where he also worked as a groom, mucking out pony stalls. David was also a Comanchero at Sky Valley Ranch for Boys in Buena Vista, Colorado. [4] He graduated from Swarthmore College and briefly interned in the White House during the presidency of Richard Nixon. He received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and was also a Fulbright Scholar in the Philippines. [3] Bradley earned a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1983.
Bradley is brother to Barbara Bradley Hagerty, author and NPR religion correspondent. [5]
In 1979, at the age of 26, Bradley founded the Research Council of Washington, later renamed The Advisory Board Company. The initial purpose of the company was to do research on any question for any industry. In 1983, his company had begun advising other firms in the financial services industry. In 1986, the company began doing special research for the health care industry, which eventually became the company's main focus. [6]
In 1997, the financial services and corporate practice of the Advisory Board was spun off as the Corporate Executive Board. [7]
Both companies became publicly traded, with the Advisory Board on NASDAQ and CEB on NYSE, and later acquired by Optum and Gartner, respectively. Bradley reportedly earned more than $300 million from their sale. [2]
In 1997, Bradley made his first acquisition as a publisher, purchasing the National Journal . He hired Michael Kelly, a well-known journalist who had just been fired from The New Republic after frequently clashing with owner Martin Peretz. Kelly was known for his controversial criticisms of Al Gore and Bill Clinton, but he got along well with Bradley.
In 1999, Bradley purchased The Atlantic from publisher and real estate tycoon Mort Zuckerman for $10 million. [8] Bradley replaced editor William Whitworth with Kelly. Bradley's strategy to improve the business model of The Atlantic, which had lost money for years, was to focus on improving editorial quality. Bradley doubled the newsroom budget of The Atlantic, allowing the magazine to embark on a hiring spree, offering contracts to 25 new writers. Kelly's first hire was to bring back James Fallows, one of the magazine's best-known journalists, who had been hired away in 1996. [2] After vowing not to move The Atlantic from its home in Boston, Bradley moved its offices in 2005 to Washington, where his other enterprises are headquartered. This drew the resignations of several prominent members of The Atlantic, including editor Cullen Murphy, [9] who later rejoined The Atlantic.
Bradley is also known for the great lengths he will go to in order to lure writers to The Atlantic. To hire Jeffrey Goldberg, a staff writer for The New Yorker , Bradley brought ponies to Goldberg's house to show Goldberg's three young children. [9]
In 2012, Bradley launched Quartz, a business-news publication aimed at mobile-device users; he sold it in 2018 to Uzabase, a Japanese media company, for between $75 and $110 million.
In 2011, Bradley led a team of researchers and journalists looking for freelance reporter Clare Gillis, who had been captured by Libyan soldiers loyal to Muammar Qaddafi. [10] The team found Gillis in a women's prison in Tripoli and used a network of contacts to arrange her release. When Gillis was set free, Qaddafi also released three other journalists, including American James Foley.
In 2012, Foley was taken hostage again, this time in Syria. Bradley led a second team of researchers to locate Foley and five other Americans taken hostage in Syria. Larry Wright wrote an article [10] about a dinner at Bradley's house during which the families of five of the missing hostages met for the first time. In the end, the team failed to gain release for four of the hostages held by ISIS. In August 2012, Foley became the first American beheaded by ISIS. In the end, all four ISIS hostages were killed or died in custody. One hostage, Theo Padnos, held by al Nusra, was released. The sixth hostage, Austin Tice, still is missing in Syria. To avoid a conflict of interest, Bradley directed Wright to publish the story in The Atlantic's competitor, The New Yorker. [11]
On 28 July 2017, Bradley sold his majority ownership of The Atlantic to the Emerson Collective, which is an organization owned by multi-billionaire investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs. [12] Bradley remains chairman emeritus and a minority owner.
Politically, Bradley considers himself a centrist. He has contributed to the Democratic and Republican parties. [2] In the 2008 U.S. presidential primaries he donated to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney. [9]
In addition to publishing, Bradley works with various educational and charitable organizations. He founded the Child Protection Network, [13] the largest system of acute care facilities for abused children in the Philippines. The network now includes emergency centers in over 100 Philippine hospitals. During his Fulbright Scholarship, Bradley taught economics at the University of the City of Manila (Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila).
Bradley is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His board memberships have included the Council on Foreign Relations, Georgetown University, the American University of Beirut, Swarthmore College, New America Foundation, KIPP DC, and the Biden Cancer Initiative. [14]
The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
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Katharine Bouchage Weymouth is an American lawyer and businesswoman who from 2008 to 2014 was publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive officer of Washington Post Media.
Atlantic Media, Inc. is an American print and online media company owned by David G. Bradley and based in the Watergate in Washington, D.C. It publishes The Atlantic, a print and online publication that also holds themed events; and offers business intelligence and consulting services through its National Journal Group subsidiary.
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James Wright Foley was an American journalist and video reporter. While working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syrian Civil War, he was abducted on November 22, 2012, in northwestern Syria. He was murdered by decapitation in August 2014 purportedly as a response to American airstrikes in Iraq, thus becoming the first American citizen executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Steven Joel Sotloff was an American-Israeli journalist. In August 2013, he was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria, and held captive by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). On September 2, 2014, ISIS released a beheading video, showing one of its members beheading Sotloff. Following Sotloff's beheading, U.S. President Barack Obama stated that the United States would take action to "degrade and destroy" ISIS. President Obama also signed an Executive Order dated June 24, 2015, in the presence of the Sotloff family and other hostage families, overhauling how the U.S. handles American hostages held abroad by groups such as ISIS.
Mohammed Emwazi was a British militant of Kuwaiti origin seen in several videos produced by the Islamist extremist group Islamic State (IS) showing the beheadings of a number of captives in 2014 and 2015. A group of his hostages nicknamed him "John" since he was part of a four-person terrorist cell with English accents whom they called 'The Beatles'; the press later began calling him "Jihadi John".
The 2014 rescue mission in Syria was an American led effort to locate and rescue hostages being held by Islamic State (IS) forces. Plans to rescue the hostages were accelerated after the execution of journalist James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Kayla Mueller by IS militants. A total of 14 hostages were held hostage by the IS at an undisclosed location. Though no soldiers were killed, the mission failed to locate and rescue the hostages.
Beginning in 2014, a number of people from various countries were beheaded by the Islamic State (IS), a radical Sunni Jihadist group operating in Iraq and Syria as well as elsewhere. In January 2014, a copy of an IS penal code surfaced describing the penalties it enforces in areas under its control, including multiple beheadings. Beheading videos have been frequently posted by IS members to social media. Several of the recorded beheadings were conducted by Mohammed Emwazi, whom the media referred to as "Jihadi John" before his identification. The beheadings received wide coverage around the world and attracted international condemnation. Political scientist Max Abrahms posited that IS may be using well-publicized beheadings as a means of differentiating itself from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and identifying itself with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda member who beheaded Daniel Pearl. The publicised beheadings represent a small proportion of a larger number of total people killed following capture by IS.
"The Beatles" was the nickname for an Islamic State terrorist group composed of four British militants. The group was named by their hostages after the English rock group The Beatles, who referred to the members as "John", "Paul", "George", and "Ringo".
Executions by ISIS refers here to killing by beheading, immolation, shooting, or other means of soldiers and civilians by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL has released a number of propaganda/publicity videos of beheadings or shootings of captives. Houtat Sulūk is reported to be a mass grave.
Clare Morgana Gillis is an American journalist. On April 5, 2011, Gillis was traveling with an anti-Gaddafi militia force, with fellow journalists James Foley, Manu Brabo and Anton Hammerl, during the collapse of the Muammar Gaddafi regime, when they were attacked by a rival group. Hammerl died during the initial attack. Gillis, Foley and Brabo were held as hostages.
Christopher P. Costa is a retired US Army intelligence officer with 34 years of service, culminating in his role as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council, White House. He is now the executive director of the International Spy Museum.
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