Dr. Baker directs the Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy & Education at Fordham University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of management at IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain, and President Emeritus of WNET-Thirteen, New York’s public television station.
During his 21 year tenure as president of WNET in New York, America’s flagship public broadcaster, Baker led the effort to raise over one billion dollars for the station. As a commercial broadcaster, Baker helped start many cable networks, introduced both Oprah Winfrey and Charlie Rose as talk show hosts, and oversaw the launch of the Discovery Channel and the Disney Channel. He was president of Westinghouse Television and Chairman of Group W Satellite Communication.
He is the recipient of seven Emmy Awards, two Columbia Dupont Journalism Awards, and is the executive producer of the theatrical film and PBS documentary, The Face: Jesus in Art. He is co-author of the book Leading with Kindness (American Management Association, 2008) and hosts the series of the same name on public television. Baker is also the co-author of Every Leader is an Artist (McGraw-Hill, 2012), and Down the Tube: An Insider’s Account of the Failure of American Television (Basic Books, 1998).
He holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University, and nine honorary doctorates from universities in America and Europe. His interests include astronomy, horology, and polar science, and he is believed to be the eighth person in history to have stood on both the North and South Poles.