The New Team at Time Inc.

An executive trio takes over for the '80s

When J. Richard Munro was named group vice president for video in 1975, Time Inc.'s television and film operations were headed for losses of nearly $3 million that year. "We gave him all the dogs and said, 'Make something of them,' " recalls Chairman Andrew Heiskell. "He managed to pull it off." By the close of 1979, the video group was a smash (pretax profits: $68.5 million), and Dick Munro was executive vice president and headed for the top of Time Inc.

He arrived there last week. Munro, 49, was named chief executive officer and president of the diversified communications and forest products company. He will take over on Oct. 1, the date on which Heiskell, the current chairman and C.E.O., reaches the firm's mandatory executive retirement age of 65, and James R. Shepley, who will then be 63, steps down as president. (Shepley will remain a director, chairman of the executive committee and chairman of the Washington Star, a Time Inc. subsidiary.) At the same time, Ralph P. Davidson, 52, now a vice president and director, will become chairman of the board, reporting to Munro. Another vice president and director, Clifford J. Grum, 45, moves up to executive vice president. Says Heiskell: "They make a team that, if successful, has a chance for a good ten-to twelve-year run."

The leader of the team will be Munro. "He's No. 1," Heiskell says. "There's no confusion in anybody's mind about that." After graduating from Colgate University, Munro joined TIME magazine's circulation department. He later shifted to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, where he rose to publisher. In 1972 he was named deputy to the group vice president in charge of book publishing, cable television and film operations. Enthusiastic and disciplined, Munro rises every morning before dawn and runs six to eight miles almost every evening. Says Heiskell: "He has enormous intelligence, integrity and humanity. He's one of the finest acquirers of talent that I've ever known."

Davidson, the new chairman, is an alumnus of Stanford University, former managing director of TIME International and publisher of TIME magazine for six years, during which it prospered handsomely. "An internationalist, a salesman, an executive," Heiskell says. "He's as comfortable in Mozambique, London or Australia as he is in New York or skiing in Sun Valley." Davidson will represent the company to the outside world and supervise Time Inc.'s dealings with Washington, foreign and local governments, and business groups.

Grum, the new executive vice president, graduated from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and the Wharton School. He was vice president for finance at Temple Industries when Time Inc. acquired that Texas-based forest products firm in 1973. He later served as treasurer of Time Inc. and publisher of FORTUNE, and is now chairman of Inland Container Corp., a Time Inc. subsidiary that produces corrugated boxes. In his new post, Grum will supervise the activities of five group vice presidents. Says Heiskell: "Clifford is a very savvy, financially oriented man with a good knowledge of the forest products business."

Munro, Davidson and Grum are all former magazine publishers, but unlike their two predecessors, they are not former newsmen (Heiskell began as a science editor at LIFE and Shepley served as Washington bureau chief for TIME). The new top executives emphasized, however, that they would retain Time Inc.'s commitment to quality publishing. "I'm not a journalist, but I've got ink in my veins too," says Munro. "It's the magazine group that makes this company different." While publisher of TIME, Davidson worked closely with the editors in the magazine's development.

In keeping with the Time Inc. tradition of editorial autonomy, Editor in Chief Henry A. Grunwald will continue to report separately to the directors.

During the eleven-year tenure of Heiskell and Shepley, Time Inc. has grown rapidly and diversified broadly. In the past three years alone, it acquired Inland Container, American Television and Communications Corp. (the nation's second largest cable-TV company), Book-of-the-Month Club and the Washington Star, relaunched LIFE and converted FORTUNE from a monthly to a fortnightly. In October the company will introduce a new science magazine, DISCOVER.*

This acquisitive and creative spurt has pushed revenues from $911 million in 1975 to $2.5 billion last year. Says Munro: "I think the company is going to have to be somewhat more structured and somewhat more disciplined. Instead of being highly growth-oriented, I expect our emphasis will be on distribution of available capital and control of that capital."

The difficult part, says Time Inc.'s new boss, will be to rein in the company without losing the qualities that made it successful in the first place. "We're big and we're complicated and we're more than just a magazine company now," Munro says. "But we will always be a relaxed and informal place to work."

*Time Inc. also publishes TIME, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, PEOPLE and MONEY magazines. Other operations include Time-Life Books; the publishing firm of Little, Brown & Co.; Time-Life Films; Home Box Office, the nation's leading supplier of pay-TV programming; and Temple-Eastex, a pulp, paper and paperboard manufacturer.

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