Keynote Session
12:20 PM - International Ballroom
Christie Hefner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Playboy E
nterprises, Inc., Chairman, Playboy.com, Inc.Christie Hefner oversees policy, management and strategy in all areas of Playboy Enterprises. She joined Playboy in 1975 and worked in a variety of the Company's businesses before named president in 1982. In 1988, she was elected to her present position of Chairman and CEO with the New York Stock Exchange-listed international media and entertainment company. She also was named Chairman of Playboy.com in September 1999, when the Company announced its intentions to spin off the business into an independent company.
During her tenure, Hefner has restructured operations, eliminated unprofitable businesses and initiated the Company’s highly successful electronic and international expansion. Through licensees, the Company offers a wide range of Playboy-branded apparel and lifestyle products in more than 70 countries. She also extended Playboy's influence worldwide by forming alliances with international partners that now produce and distribute 16 editions of Playboy magazine, and operate Playboy TV networks in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Continuing the Company's electronic expansion, Hefner in 1994 led the Company onto the Internet, when Playboy became the first national magazine on the World Wide Web. The Playboy.com site began selling advertising the following summer, and it has since grown into one of the Web’s most-visited entertainment destinations. The subscription-based Playboy Cyber Club is an electronic Playboy fan club that offers enhanced interactivity, including daily chats with Playboy personalities, and premium access to Playboy’s extensive photographic and editorial libraries. Playboy.com received visits from more than 160 countries in 1999.
Besides directing Playboy Enterprises' operations, Hefner is active in a number of local and national organizations. She was the first woman elected to the Chicago chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. Hefner helped found the Committee of 200, an international organization of preeminent women business owners and executives. She serves on the boards of the Magazine Publishers Association, the Business Committee for the Arts, The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Hefner is on the Advisory Board of the American Civil Liberties Union and The Creative Coalition, and she is a general trustee of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center. She serves on another corporate board, Telocity, Inc., which is a leading nationwide provider of broadband services to the residential market.
Hefner was born in Chicago in 1952. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year of college, Hefner graduated from Brandeis University summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and American literature in 1974. She became a President's Councilor of her alma mater in 1978. She is married to real estate developer and attorney William A. Marovitz, a former Illinois state senator.