Ted Turner, chairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc., has won recognition for his entrepreneurial acumen, vision, leadership, and his unprecedented philanthropy throughout his career.

As a media executive, Turner built a portfolio of cable television news and entertainment brands and businesses, including CNN Headline News, CNN International, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies. In the mid-1990s, Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema became Turner Broadcasting properties. In October 1996, the company merged with Time Warner Inc., and in 2001, Time Warner merged with AOL to create AOL Time Warner. The company later changed its name back to Time Warner Inc.

As the chairman of the Turner Foundation, Inc., Turner supports efforts improving air and water quality, developing a sustainable energy future, safeguarding environmental health, protecting wildlife habitat, and developing practices and policies to curb population growth. Since its inception, the foundation has awarded more than $300 million to hundreds of organizations.

He launched The Captain Planet Foundation funds and support environmental projects for youth as well as The Turner Endangered Species Fund to conserve biodiversity through restoration efforts on the Turner properties.

Turner announced his pledge of up to $1 billion dollars to the United Nations Foundation (UNF) in 1997. The organization supports the goals and objectives of the United Nations. UNF has identified four core priorities: women and population; children’s health; the environment; and peace and security. In early 2001, Turner launched the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a foundation working to close the gap between the threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the global response.

Turner is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, industry awards, and civic honors, including being named Time magazine’s 1991 Man of the Year, Broadcasting and Cable’s 1999 Man of the Century, and one of Time magazine's 100 World’s Most Influential People in 2009. In recent years, Turner received the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation’s Renaissance Man of the Year award and the Overseas Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award, among others.