FORA.tv Speaker - Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time Magazine.

He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) and of Kissinger: A Biography (1992) and is the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). His biography of Albert Einstein - Einstein: His Life and Universe - was released in April 2007.

Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

He began his career at the Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He joined Time Magazine in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the magazine's 14th managing editor in 1996. He became Chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

He was appointed after Hurricane Katrina to be the vice-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. He is on the Board of Directors of United Airlines, Tulane University, the National Constitution Center, and he is chairman of the board of Teach for America.