Universal Studios president to speak Oct. 12 at Newhouse

Universal Studios president to speak Oct. 12 at NewhouseOctober 10, 2006Jaime Winne Alvarezjlwinne@syr.edu

Ron Meyer, president and chief operating officer of Universal Studios, will speak on the state of the entertainment industry this Thursday, Oct. 12, at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. A short question-and-answer session will follow. His lecture, sponsored by the Newhouse School and SU’s Office of Electronic Media Communications, is open to the campus community. It will take place at noon in Studio A, Newhouse II.

Meyer was appointed president and chief operating officer of Universal Studios in August 1995. Prior to joining Universal, he was president of Creative Artists Agency Inc., which he founded in 1975 with four fellow agents from the William Morris Agency. They built the company into the pre-eminent talent agency, representing many of the industry’s most influential and talented people, and later expanding its range of services to include consulting with leading American and international corporations.

Previously, Meyer was a television agent with the William Morris Agency from 1970-75 and worked at the Paul Kohner Agency in Los Angeles from 1964-70. Before joining the Kohner Agency, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Meyer is a member of the board of trustees of the American Film Institute and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; the boards of directors of the Geffen Playhouse, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, and the UCLA Film School; the honoree board of governors of the Entertainment Industry Foundation; the Circle of Friends of the Help Group; and the advisory board of Workplace Hollywood.