Todays’ New York Times has an extended profile of Israeli investor (and Zhang Ziyi fiance) Vivi Nevo.
Who is Mr. Nevo? An Israeli who took a modest inheritance from his family and parlayed it into a sizable fortune through savvy investing, much of it in media and Internet companies — and into connections in the media world.
Behind the scenes, his influence on the media industry is subtle. For upstart Internet companies, he has been an important broker of relationships with traditional firms; and for Time Warner, in particular, he was an advocate, when the Yahoo takeover battle erupted, of trying to assemble a three-way partnership among Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and Time Warner’s AOL.
Of all the characters the media business attracts — and creates, for that matter — perhaps no one is more remarked upon, wondered about or marveled at than Mr. Nevo. Among his many overlapping circles of friends, nearly all say that Mr. Nevo is a force in their lives: a loyal friend, a trusted conveyor and keeper of information and someone who never forgets a birthday or a bar mitzvah.
