Stephen Swid

Education

Swid"s first deal was the takeover of General Felt Industries (GFI) in 1974 which he completed with fellow investment banker Marshall Cogan.

Career

He currently serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, Incorporated., one of the three performing rights organizations in the United States of America. Swid and Cogan would then merge GFI with Knoll International and use Knoll as a holding company to acquire a series of businesses. Foreign twelve years until July 1986, Swid was Company-Chairman and Company-Chief Executive Officer of Knoll. Among Swid and Cogan"s most notable acquisitions were takeover of the Sheller-Globe Corporation and later the purchase of the 21 Club. and Sheller-Globe Corporation.

Cogan was unsuccessful in his high profile bids to acquire the Boston Red Sox, Sotheby"s and L.F. Rothschild in the buyout boom of the 1980s.

In 1986, Swid purchased Columbia Broadcasting System Songs, the music publishing unit of Columbia Broadcasting System, which would later become the beginning of SBK Entertainment World, a leading music publisher and worldwide entertainment services company. From November, 1986, until May, 1989, Swid was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SBK Entertainment World.

From February, 1990 until January, 1995, Stephen was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Westview Press, an academic publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado and from 1989 until 1997 the Chairman and Chief Executive Office of SPIN, a music and youth culture magazine. Stephen Swid is an active supporter of the arts and education and currently serves as a Director of The Municipal Art Society of New New York

He has also served as a Trustee of the Horace Mann School and as Executive Vice President of the Board of the Lenox School, both located in New York City.

Achievements

• Born to a Jewish family, Swid is graduate of Ohio State University, Swid was Founder and Senior Partner of Swid Investors, an investment limited partnership, general partner of City Associates, a private management company, senior investment officer of the Oppenheimer Funds and securities analyst of the Dreyfus Fund.

Membership

Due to his interest in foreign relations and international diplomacy, Swid is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and past Director of the East West Institute. He is a Trustee and Chairman of the Executive & Finance Committee of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and is a member of the Visiting Committee on 20th Century Art for the Metropolitan Museum of Artist