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

Biography

Haft was born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and raised in

Flushing, Queens Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City Borough (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 ...

, 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 – also known as Hofstra Law School and colloquially as Hofstra Law – is a law school located in Hempstead, on Long Island, in New York, United States. It is affiliated with Hofstra U ...

and is a member of the bar of the U. S. Supreme Court. After studying, Haft produced films for over 20 years including ''

Jakob the Liar ''Jakob the Liar'' is a 1999 American-made Holocaust film directed by Peter Kassovitz, produced by Steven Haft and Marsha Garces Williams. It is written by Kassovitz and Didier Decoin based on the 1969 German novel '' Jacob the Liar'', by Je ...

'' and ''

Dead Poets Society ''Dead Poets Society'' is a 1989 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Tom Schulman. The film, starring Robin Williams, is set in 1959 at a fictional elite boarding school called Welton Academy, and tells ...

''. In 2000, he accepted a position with

AOL 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, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

as vice president and chief strategy officer for its $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, the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; stylized as 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 ...

, the College Television Network, AirMedia, Edelman and Burson-Marstellar. He is the senior vice president of innovation for the magazine publisher

Time Inc. Time Inc. (also referred to as Time & Life, Inc. later on, after their two onetime flagship magazine publications) was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New ...

Philanthropy and civic service

Haft has been involved in environmental issues, human rights and arts in education since the 1970s. He sat on the board of United States' variant of the TerraMar Project, which was a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

that promoted the Clean Oceans provision of the Sustainable Development Goals program, 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 financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School, despite lacking a col ...

and

Ghislaine Maxwell Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British-French-American former socialite and convicted sex offender. She was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the deceased financier and ...

, became public. Haft is an advisory board member of the Global Partnerships Forum, which acts as an intermediary linking business entities, government agencies and the United Nations to develop shared goals and efforts. He is an elected member of the Motion Picture Academy and a trustee ''emeritus'' of

Robert Redford Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades such as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the ...

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by actor 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 compo ...

and was appointed by the New York mayor,

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the 108th mayo ...

, 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 in northwest Brooklyn in New York City, New York (state), New York, U.S. The Navy Yard is located on the East River in Wallabout Bay, a se ...

Corporation. He is vice chair of the Presidential Scholars Foundation, is a

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

advisor to the Center for the Study of The Presidency & Congress and has done work for the John D. Rockefeller III Fund, the

John Hay Whitney John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 – February 8, 1982) was an American venture capitalist, sportsman, philanthropist, newspaper publisher, film producer and diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the '' New ...

Foundation, the

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

and the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...

. He was a co-founder of the original

Earth Day Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org (formerly Earth Day Network) includin ...

in 1970.

Personal life

He is divorced from the author

Lisa Birnbach Lisa R. Birnbach (born 1957/1958) is an author best known for co-authoring ''The Official Preppy Handbook'', which spent 38 weeks at number one on the ''New York Times'' best-seller list in 1980. Early life and education Birnbach was born to a A ...

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

Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (abbreviated as KJ or CKJ) is a Modern Orthodox Jewish synagogue at 126 East 85th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The synagogue was founded in 1872. The syna ...

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 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) Mass media people from Manhattan 21st-century American Jews Jewish American film people Hofstra University alumni