Is There Room at the Top for Black Executives?

THE NEW YORK TIMES—The executives are a study in contrasts. One is a brash risk-taker who bootstrapped his way from an Alabama cotton farm to one of Wall Street’s largest brokerage firms. The other made his mark as a consensus builder who leveraged ties to one of America’s most powerful families to eventually lead the world’s largest media company.

E. Stanley O’Neal, 56, at Merrill Lynch and Richard D. Parsons, 59, at Time Warner, have nevertheless inhabited the public imagination as two executives who helped rewrite history by breaking down cultural barriers and rising to lead Fortune 500 companies. Read article.