Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Playboy Enterprises, Inc.
Chairman, Playboy.com, Inc.

Hefner oversees policy, management and strategy in all areas of Playboy Enterprises, and serves as chairman of Playboy.com, Inc. She joined Playboy in 1975 and worked in a variety of the Company's businesses before being elected to the board of directors in 1979 and being named president in 1982. In 1988, she was elected to her present position of chairman and CEO with the New York Stock Exchange-listed international media and entertainment company. She was named chairman of Playboy.com in September 1999, when the company announced its intentions to spin off the business into an independent company.

During her tenure, Hefner has restructured operations, eliminated unprofitable businesses and initiated successful expansion electronically and internationally. She extended Playboy's influence worldwide by forming alliances with international partners that now produce and distribute 16 editions of Playboy magazine, and operate Playboy TV networks in four international regions. The Company sells television and home video programming in almost 100 countries in which it does not yet have networks. Through international licensees, the Company also offers a wide range of Playboy-branded apparel and lifestyle products in more than 60 countries.

Under Hefner's direction, the Company has significantly expanded its television business. Playboy in March 1999 acquired Spice Entertainment, Inc., which is expected to further consolidate the company's leading position in the television industry. In the United States, Playboy TV now is available to approximately 25 million cable television and direct-to-home satellite households on both pay-per-view and subscription bases. Playboy networks also operate in Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and throughout Latin America, and the company in February received its license to establish a network in Germany. In August 1999, the Playboy Entertainment Group and the Cisneros Television Group finalized formation of Playboy TV International, LLC. The joint venture will fund and launch additional Playboy TV networks worldwide.

Continuing the Company's electronic expansion, Hefner in 1994 led the Company onto the Internet, when Playboy became the first national magazine on the World Wide Web. Playboy.com began selling advertising the following summer, and it has since grown into one of the Web's most-visited entertainment sites. The Company in July 1997 launched the subscription-based Playboy Cyber Club, an electronic Playboy fan club that offers enhanced interactivity, including daily chats with Playboy personalities, and premium access to Playboy's extensive photographic and editorial libraries. Playboy.com also operates the Playboy Store and Cyberspice, online counterparts of PEI's Playboy and Spice print catalogs. Playboy.com, which comprises all of the Company's Web sites, received visits from more than 130 countries in 1998. Playboy.com's IPO is planned for early 2000, pending market conditions.

Besides directing Playboy Enterprises' operations, Hefner is active in a number of local and national organizations. She was the first woman elected to the Chicago chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. Hefner helped found the Committee of 200, an international organization of preeminent women business owners and executives. She serves on the boards of the Magazine Publishers Association, the Business Committee for the Arts, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, as well as the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Advisory Board of The Nation Institute. Hefner was project board chairman for the CORE Center, an innovative clinic and research facility that opened in 1998 in Chicago, which conducts clinical research and provides prevention education and outpatient care for people with HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.

Hefner is regularly interviewed by reporters from around the world. Major media, including The New York Times, Fortune, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, 60 Minutes, NBC Dateline, The Washington Post, The Economist, New York magazine and Business Week have prominently featured her. Her work has led to many speaking engagements before such groups as the National Press Club, World Economic Forum, American Advertising Federation, National Newspaper Association, Audit Bureau of Circulations, Forrester Research and the National Cable Television Association. She also has lectured on college campuses nationwide, including the Harvard Business School, University of Chicago, the Wharton School of Business and Columbia University.

Hefner was born in Chicago in 1952. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year of college, she graduated from Brandeis University summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in English and American literature in 1974. She became a President's Councilor of her alma mater in 1978 and was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1991. She is married to real estate developer and attorney William A. Marovitz, a former Illinois state senator.