Robert Friedman ’80
President, Media and Entertainment
@radical.media, a Fremantle Company
New York
Robert Friedman is president of @radical.media’s global entertainment company that specializes in the production and distribution of film, TV and digital content. The company’s credits include the Academy Award–winning The Fog of War, the Grammy-winning A Concert for George, Jay-Z’s Fade to Black, The Iconoclasts, the Emmy-winning series 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America, the pilot episode of Mad Men, and MTV’s Britney: For the Record. Radical Media has also developed cross-platform initiatives, including driverTV, a hi-def video-on-demand auto channel in partnership with NBC.
Previously, Mr. Friedman was president of Classic Media: Harvey & Golden Books Entertainment, overseeing the company’s burgeoning portfolio of family-oriented properties. The company was sold to a private equity investor and subsequently to a large UK-based entertainment company.
Prior to joining Classic Media, Mr. Friedman was a top-ranked executive with AOL Time Warner, where his positions included president of New Line TV and cochairman of New Line Cinema in charge of worldwide theatrical marketing for such films as Austin Powers and Lord of the Rings. At AOL he was president of AOL Interactive Marketing and Television. He also served as the chief marketing officer of Time Warner.
Mr. Friedman serves on the boards of Mount Sinai Hospital, Vassar College, and the Big Apple Circus and is a member of the International Academy of TV Arts & Sciences. He has been a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) for almost two decades. He is also on the board of the Morgans Hotel Group, which includes Hard Rock Casino, Delano, and Hudson properties, among others.
Mr. Friedman is married to Elissa Gretz, MD, who grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., attended Vassar College, and most recently headed the Benign Gynecology Division of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Gretz is now medical director of the GYN clinical staff at Mount Sinai Medical Center. They have two daughters, 20 and 18 years old, who both attend Williams College.