Jerry Levin wants to get in touch with his creative side.
The departing AOL Time Warner CEO decided to cut short his role so he can “write and make and do.”
Media insiders noted Levin has always been an “extremely emotional” man, but that “he’s been very emotional since Sept. 11.”
Levin revealed yesterday that he had a special provision inserted into his employment contract in 1997 after his son, Jonathan, an English teacher, was killed in New York by a former student. The clause allowed Levin not to finish his term as CEO.
“I felt that once my work was completed and I was satisfied with the company’s direction and progress, I’d invoke that provision and turn my full energies to the moral and social issues I feel so passionate about,” Levin wrote in an e-mail to AOL Time Warner employees. “That time has arrived.”
“We’re supposed to be suits here who run corporations for 30 years, but actually inside myself I am a creative person,” Levin told Bloomberg. “People see me, but they don’t truly know me as an individual, and that’s what I want to do.”