Steven Haft is an American media executive, attorney, and film producer.

Biography

Haft was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

and raised in

Flushing, Queens Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and th ...

, the son of Helen (née Urdang) and Nathan "Nuddy" Haft. He is a graduate of

Hofstra University School of Law The Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University (commonly known as Hofstra Law) is a law school located in Hempstead, New York on Long Island, affiliated with Hofstra University. Founded in 1970 and accredited by the ABA in 1971, the sc ...

and is a member of The Bar of the U. S. Supreme Court. After school, Haft produced films for over twenty years including '' Jakob the Liar'' and ''

Dead Poets Society ''Dead Poets Society'' is a 1989 American drama film directed by Peter Weir, written by Tom Schulman, and starring Robin Williams. Set in 1959 at the fictional elite conservative boarding school Welton Academy, it tells the story of an English ...

.'' In 2000, he accepted a position with

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

where he served as Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for their $1.2 billion in sales Interactive Marketing Group. He left AOL to found the media consultancy company Indyworks, which focuses on the impact of emerging technologies on media. His clients included

Comcast Cable Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications company and division of Comcast Corporation used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the co ...

, the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...

, the

College Television Network CheddarU is an American closed-circuit network available on 600 U.S. college campuses owned by Cheddar, as part of internally originated cable systems that are a part of on-campus housing or college closed-circuit television systems. In 201 ...

, AirMedia,

Edelman Edelman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Abram Wolf Edelman (a.k.a. Abraham Edelman; 1832–1907), Polish-born American rabbi; the first rabbi in Los Angeles, California * Adam Edelman (born 1991), American-born four-time I ...

, and Burson-Marstellar. He presently serves as Senior Vice President of Innovation for magazine publisher

Time Inc. Time Inc. was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New York City. It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake ''Time'', ''Sports Illu ...

Philanthropy and civic service

Haft has been involved in environmental issues, human rights and arts in education since the 1970s. He served on the Board of United States variant of

the TerraMar Project The TerraMar Project was self-described as an environmental nonprofit organization. It was founded in 2012 in the United States by Ghislaine Maxwell. A sister organisation in the United Kingdom was incorporated in 2013. TerraMar (U.S.) announced ...

, which was a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

that promoted the Clean Oceans provision of the Sustainable Development Goals program. Haft served on the board until TerraMar (US) announced that it had ended operations on July 12, 2019 after the sex trafficking charges against

Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, de ...

, associate of

Ghislaine Maxwell Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British convicted sex offender and former socialite. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the financier and convicted sex o ...

, became public. He is an Advisory Board Member of the Global Partnerships Forum, which serves as an intermediary linking business entities, government agencies, and the United Nations to develop shared goals and efforts. Haft is an elected Member of the Motion Picture Academy and Trustee Emeritus of

Robert Redford Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award from four nominations, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, the Ceci ...

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers fr ...

; and was appointed by New York Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

to the Board of the

Brooklyn Navy Yard The Brooklyn Navy Yard (originally known as the New York Navy Yard) is a shipyard and industrial complex located in northwest Brooklyn in New York City, New York (state), New York. The Navy Yard is located on the East River in Wallabout Bay, a ...

Corporation. He serves as Vice Chair of the Presidential Scholars Foundation, is a

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushr ...

Advisor to the Center for the Study of The Presidency & Congress, and has done work for the

John D. Rockefeller III John Davison Rockefeller III (March 21, 1906 – July 10, 1978) was an American philanthropist. Rockefeller was the eldest son and second child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller as well as a grandson of Standard Oil co-founde ...

rd Fund, the

John Hay Whitney John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 – February 8, 1982) was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the ''New York Herald Tribune'', and president of the Museum of Modern Art. He was a member of the Whitney family. Early life Whi ...

Foundation, the

United Automobile Workers The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico ...

, and the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...

. He was a co-founder of the original Earth Day in 1970.

Personal life

He is divorced from author

Lisa Birnbach Lisa R. Birnbach is an author best known for co-authoring ''The Official Preppy Handbook'', which spent 38 weeks at number one on the ''New York Times'' bestseller list in 1980. Early life and education Birnbach was born to a Jewish family on t ...

; they have three children. He attended the Modern Orthodox Jewish synagogue

Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (KJ or CKJ) is a Modern Orthodox synagogue, located on East 85th Street on the Upper East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The synagogue was founded in 1872. The synagogue is closely affiliated with t ...

in Manhattan.

Filmography

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted.

Film

;As writer

Television

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haft, Steven 1949 births Living people 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American film producers American mass media company founders 20th-century American Jews AOL people Maurice A. Deane School of Law alumni Filmmakers who won the Best Film BAFTA Award Film producers from New York (state) People from Manhattan 21st-century American Jews Jewish American film producers