Richard Sarnoff ’81
New York, NY

At-Large Candidate

Richard Sarnoff ’81 is known as a global business leader in the media world, with deep experience in general management and strategic planning coupled with a strong vision and commitment to innovation. He is Co-Chairman of Bertelsmann, Inc., the U.S. holding company of Europe’s largest media company, Bertelsmann AG. Sarnoff is also President of Bertelsmann’s worldwide digital media investing arm, BDMI. A key architect in the acquisition of Random House by Bertelsmann AG, Sarnoff helped build Random House into the world’s largest trade and consumer publisher, with offices in 12 countries.

As a media executive, Sarnoff is also addressing the challenges brought by digital media. In addition to his other positions, Sarnoff currently serves as Chairman of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). In that role he was the lead negotiator of the Google class action settlement with publishers and authors.

“The Google settlement, if approved by the judge, will create instantaneous access to -- and a vast new market for -- millions of books which are not in the public domain…. I believe that this settlement will be a watershed event for scholarship in the United States. It is already a watershed event for copyright in the digital age,” says Sarnoff. As a result of the case, he was named the publishing industry’s inaugural “Change Maker” by Publisher’s Weekly.

Sarnoff comes from a noted media family. His great-uncle was former RCA Chairman David Sarnoff, who pioneered the development of the first commercial radio station and became known as one of the architects of mass media. Sarnoff himself graduated with a degree in Art and Archaeology, writing a prize-winning 160-page thesis on European painting after World War II. He then worked as a freelance writer and software marketer before earning his M.B.A. from Harvard University.

After receiving his M.B.A., Sarnoff worked for Bantam Doubleday Dell, rising through the ranks from Director of Marketing on up to Executive Vice President and CFO of Random House, Inc., after the companies merged in 1998. He later became President of Random House Ventures, LLC, and President of the Corporate Development Group in 2000, and was the first American to serve on the Bertelsmann AG Supervisory Board, beginning in 2002.

Sarnoff also serves on a number of profit and non-profit boards, including Activision Blizzard, Inc., American Reading Company, and the Bronx Lab School. His own charitable work is expansive as well, with a private grant foundation, the Ann and Richard Sarnoff Family Foundation, supporting such institutions as the Bronx Lab School, a school in a poor section of the Bronx, which has a 90 percent graduation rate and extraordinary success in college placement. “One of my proudest moments came at the school’s first graduation last year,” he says. He told graduates, “You all know it is raining outside…but I see nothing but sunshine in here.” He says he felt very connected to the “magic of education.”

Sarnoff has continued his interest in Princeton. A current volunteer in the Alumni Careers Network, he visits the campus regularly and recently gave a talk at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy about the Google settlement and the future of books. Since 2003, he has been a member of the board of the Princeton University Press. Sarnoff notes that his involvement with the Princeton University Press has brought him “closer to Princeton as an alumnus and to its faculty and administration.” Adding this experience to his other professional and non-profit interests, he says the Google settlement and the Bronx school have “brought home for me the importance of bringing education forward as intelligently and mightily as we can, particularly given the fragility of other themes and institutions in today’s world. Princeton University is and will be a leader in doing just that.”