the observer – top 100 influential people in new york - from marc jacobs and jon stewart, to henry...

7/29/2019 The Observer Top 100 Influential People in New York - From Marc Jacobs and Jon Stewart, to Henry Kravis and Lorne Michaels

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The Observer Top

100 Influential Peoplein New York

From Marc Jacobs and Jon Stewart, to Henry Kravis, LorneMichaels, and Lauren Santo Domingo - The Observershares

its top influential people in NYC.


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How is this determined?

Every yearThe Observer comes out with its Top 100Influential People in New York. There are currently morethan 8 million people living in New York City, so making the

top 100 is pretty impressive. In order to determine who theywould pick, the Observer asked these questions:

Did this person move the needle somehow?

Is there something of significance that he or she changed?

The results were split up into 11 different categories. Itinclude Art, Business, Entertainment, City Life, Media,Fashion, Society, Real Estate, Spirit of the City, Sports, andTech-VC.
http://observer.com/observer-25/top-100/http://observer.com/observer-25/top-100/http://observer.com/observer-25/top-100/http://observer.com/observer-25/top-100/


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Art Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is one of the best-knownphotographers on the planet. Her photographsinwhich she often uses herself as subjecthaveupended the way we see art history, the way men seewomen, the way women see themselves and the waywe all see ourselves.

Though she started as a painter at Buffalo StateCollege, Ms. Sherman launched herself to stardomwith her iconic self-portraiture. Since the 70s, shehas photographed herself in an immense range ofcostumes, from Hollywood movie star to grotesqueclown to Renaissance muse. For decades, herportraitswhich are currently on display in galleries

across North America and Europehave exploredand challenged the roles women play incontemporary society and throughout history. Byacting as both subject and photographer, Ms.Sherman has demonstrated womens capacity toforge their own identities and define their place insociety on their own terms.


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Business Henry Kravis

In the same yearThe New York Observerwas getting going,a slightly bigger deal was in the works. The management ofRJR Nabisco was trying to take the cigarette maker privateand was offering a stunning fortune to do so. Henry Kravisoffered more. Kravis won, and a legend was born.

With mentor Jerome Kohlberg and cousin George Roberts,

Mr. Kravis was a pioneer of bootstrap capitalism, using acompanys assets and debt capacity to acquire it with littleequity. KKRs leveraged buyouts of Beatrice, Kraft and othergiant corporations defined the restructuring of Americanconsumers most familiar brand names: Tropicana,Samsonite, Safeway, Salem, Winston, Oreo, Ritz, Snickers,MacMillan, Fleet Bank and many others.

As if remaking how M&A are transacted isnt enough, Mr.

Kravis is a leading philanthropist as well as an astutecollector of art. Along with his wife, Marie-Jose, he has beena tremendous supporter of New York institutions. He is aboard member and a multimillion-dollar contributor to MountSinai Hospital and Columbia Graduate School of Business.He also started the nonprofit New York City Investment Fundand is on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art andthe New York City Ballet.
http://www.kkr.com/leadership/henry-r-kravishttp://www.kkr.com/leadership/henry-r-kravishttp://www.kkr.com/leadership/henry-r-kravishttp://www.kkr.com/leadership/henry-r-kravis


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Entertainment - LorneMichaels

Who would have thought a kid from Toronto would go on to become themost important man in the history of American comedy? In 1975, NBCinvited a 30-year-old comedy writer named Lorne Michaels to pitch a showto accomplish the minor feat of giving Johnny Carson Tonightreruns a restat 11:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Appealing to younger audiences would be aplus.

From this seed, Michaels gave birth to a late-night sketch show initially

called NBCs Saturday Night. (After a Howard Cosell-hosted variety showwith a similar name tanked, Mr. Michaelss show became Saturday Night

Live.) SNL introduced the world to the original cast of The Not Ready forPrime-Time Players, including Chevy Chase, DanAckroyd, John Belushiand Gilda Radner. All became comedic icons.

His show, which has remained firmly under his creative control for nearly40 yearssave a brief blip in the early 80swould go on to redefine late-night television, create a national comedic institution and remake Americancomedy. Most remarkably, SNL accomplished the impossible feat of

making it cool to stay in on Saturday nights. Over the years, SNLs supremacy would establish New York as the

definitive comedians mecca. Even as Mr. Michaels conducted frequent

talent raids in Chicago, L.A. and Toronto and at The Harvard Lampoon, thetalent thrived and grew in the SNL environment. His impeccable eye forpotential would only grow more acute as the years went on, with the showlaunching the careers of some of the biggest stars of our timefrom EddieMurphy and Mike Myers to Will Ferrell and Tina Feyand spawning

numerous TV shows and films, from Waynes Worldto 30 Rock.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/steve-martin-lorne-michaels-biggest-fan_n_2724596.html


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Fashion - Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs, the brash enfant terribleof high fashion, cantseem to do anything without making a splash. Since hebecame creative director of luxury French fashion houseLouis Vuitton, he has strengthened its business, breathinglife into the formerly stuffy leather goods company with anow-iconic collaboration with Japanese artist Takashi

Murakami.

His own lines, Marc Jacobs and Marc by Marc Jacobs, havebecome a wardrobe staple for millions of women (try to walka Manhattan mile without spotting one of his trademarkworkwear bags). His retail mecca on Bleecker Street, whichhe runs with his partner, Robert Duffy, has transformed

Greenwich Village, turning the neighborhood into a fashionhaven. Add to this his activism on issues from AIDS to skincancerwho can forget those T-shirts featuring nakedcelebrities?and it becomes readily apparent that Mr.Jacobs is a whole lot more than just the name on your bag.


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Media - Jon Stewart

Its time to face facts: Jon Stewart will probably never run for public office.As he often points out, his job is to tell jokes, often silly ones, on a networkthat also features a show with talking poop. But the very fact that he needsto remind us of this shows the significance of his extraordinary career infake news. Yes, Jon Stewart is a comedian. But he has forever changedthe very nature of comedy: what we think it is, and particularly what wethink it can do.

He took a flagging satire of news shows on an obscure network andtransformed it into one of our primary platforms for speaking truth to power.

Born Jon Leibowitz in 1962, Mr. Stewart became one of the fresh faces onthe stand-up circuit in the 90s. His stint on The Larry Sanders Showand afew brief but memorable turns in television and film introduced Mr. Stewartto comedy audiences, but he really made his mark after taking over the

faltering Daily Showfrom Craig Kilborn. Mr. Stewart was instrumental inchanging the format and focus of the show, encouraging hiscorrespondents (including Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell and Ed Helms) totake a political stance and let their opinions inspire their comedy. In sodoing, Mr. Stewart and his multiple-Emmy-winning staff not only createdthe most biting satire of American politics in television history, theyinvented a new way of informing the public about the issues. Studies showthat not only do many young Americans get much of their news from TheDaily Show, but that the shows content is as substantive as that of

serious news programs.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0829537/http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0829537/


8/12

Society Lauren SantoDomingo

Lauren Santo Domingo is giving the jobyes, jobbecause she makes it payof socialite in New York Citysome 21st-century updates. Sure, shes got icy-blondgood looks, a millionaire upbringing and a billion-heirhusband, but shes also managed to make bank on

something shes an expert at: exclusivity. In 2011, Ms.Santo Domingo co-founded Moda Operandi, a fashionstartup that allows members to pre-order looks straightoff the runway, months before they hit stores.

Public-embarrassment- and reality-show-free, Ms. SantoDomingo (with credit to her PR past) has also managed

to bring Gilded Age respectability back to the Manhattansocialite moniker while still embracing (and properly

using) social media platforms. Ms. Santo Domingo is apro at keeping it classy, and her hydrogen peroxide-sharptweets (followed by 58,000 users) and envy-inducingInstagram feed prove shes a socialite for the digital age.


9/12

Tech-VC David Karp

When David Karp was 14, his parents recognized that BronxScience could not keep up with him and introduced him to theanimation producer Fred Siebert, with whom he interned. Mr.Karp moved on to work as the chief technology officer forUrbanBaby, an Internet forum for parents, and in February2007, he founded his own company. It provided a platform for

the rapid-fire posting of text, photos, quotes, links, music andvideos. It was designed to make blogging and information-sharing easier.

The program was called Tumblr, which, at the moment,employs 164 people and contains 96 million blogs and 44.3billion posts. Mr. Karp, who was included in this years Forbes

30 under 30 list, has made a good sum of moneyhepurchased a condo in Williamsburg for $1.6 million last year,and his net worth is greater than $200 millionbut hes stillfiguring out how to monetize his website with meaningfulmodes of advertising. He dismisses the revenue models ofTwitter and Facebook, with their little blue links, as he calls

them. However Mr. Karps ambitions play out, the insignia on

Tumblrs About page keeps the company grounded: Made inNY.


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Complete List

Arts

Cindy ShermanAndy WarholLarry GagosianGlenn Lowry

Agnes Gund

Jeff KoonsJerry Saltz and RobertaSmithMarina AbramovicJames Levine

Business

George Soros

James DimonCarl IcahnRonald PerelmanMichael SteinhardtPaul SingerHenry KravisBernard Madoff

Kenneth ChenaultHenry KravisBernard MadoffKenneth ChenaultLaurence FinkStephen Schwarzman

City Life

Carrie BradshawDanny MeyerIan SchragerMario BataliDavid Chang

Julian Niccolini

Entertainment

Jay-Z and BeyoncCameron MackintoshPeter GelbJerry Seinfeld

Martin ScorseseSpike LeePeter GelbJerry SeinfeldMartin ScorseseSpike Lee

MadonnaWoody AllenScott RudinHarvey and BobWeinstein Robert De NiroLorne MichaelsHoward Stern

Fashion

Ralph LaurenMarc Jacobs

Anna WintourJenna LyonsMichael Kors

Terry LungrenVera WangCathy Horyn

Media

Jon StewartStrauss ZelnickRupert MurdochJoan DidionHelen Gurley BrownRegis PhilbinMartha StewartTom Wolfe

Mortimer ZuckermanDavid LettermanTom FrestonNick DentonRoger AilesPaula ScherBarbara Walters


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Complete List

Jeffery ZuckerMichiko Kakutani

Politics

Bill Clinton

Rudolph GiulianiCory BookerAndrew CuomoMichael BloombergHillary ClintonCharles Schumer

Real Estate

Stephen Ross, Jeff Blau,and Bruce BealDonald Trump

Anthony MalkinGary BarnettDouglas Durst

Jonathon (Jody) DurstLarry Silverstein

Society

Tinsley Mortimer

Derek BlasbergLee Radziwill and MercedesBassBrook AstorC.Z. GuestLauren Santo Domingo

Spirit of the City

Howard RubensteinRaymond KellyRandi WeingartenRobert Hammond and JoshuaDavid

Al Sharpton

Joel KleinCardinal Timothy DolanMasamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger

Sports

Brian CashmanJoe TorreDerek JeterEli ManningJohn Mara and Robert Wood Johnson IV

Tech-VC

Kenneth LererShana FisherKevin RyanDavid KarpBarry DillerFred Wilson


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Source

All information and biographies in this power point came directly from:The Observer Top 100 Influential People
http://observer.com/observer-25/top-100/http://observer.com/observer-25/top-100/

the observer – top 100 influential people in new york - from marc jacobs and jon stewart, to henry...

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