KGI Community Mourns the Loss of Former Trustee Frank Biondi Jr.

The Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) community is saddened to share the news that former Trustee Frank Biondi Jr. passed away on Monday, Nov. 25, at the age of 74. 

“Frank was an inspirational leader and a friend to the KGI community,” KGI President Sheldon Schuster says. “We will miss him greatly and our thoughts are with his family. Frank served as a member of the KGI Board of Trustees from 2011 through 2016.

“He provided tremendous insight and guidance to our campus leadership.” 

In KGI’s 2011 announcement introducing Biondi to the Board of Trustees, he was described as bringing “a tremendous amount of industry experience, innovative thinking, and creative energy from which the institute can draw upon as it continues to grow and fulfill its mission.” 

On Monday, Nov. 25, the Los Angeles Times published Biondi’s obituary: 

Frank Biondi Jr., who helped shape the modern-day media industry while managing companies such as Viacom, Universal Studios and HBO, died early Monday. 

Biondi, who was 74, died of bladder cancer at his home in Los Angeles, his daughter Jane Biondi Munna told The Times. 

A highly regarded businessman, Biondi helped build HBO and Viacom into formidable entertainment companies and oversaw some of the most popular media brands, including MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures, during the 1980s and 1990s. He also served as chairman and chief executive of Universal Studios in the late 1990s. 

Biondi was a razor-sharp and low-key business executive who could negotiate a complex merger but was also known for his unflappable and straightforward demeanor, which was often in sharp contrast to the sometimes irascible personalities he worked for. 

To read the obituary, click here.