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Joel Klein, Chief Executive Officer, Bertelsmann, Inc.

Joel Klein is Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann Inc. and Chief U.S. Liaison Officer to Bertelsmann AG, responsible for corporate functions in the U.S and a key strategic advisor to Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff.

Previously, Joel Klein served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice until September 2000; and was appointed Acting Assistant Attorney General by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate July 1997. Serving one of the longest tenures as head of the Antitrust Division, he led many landmark antitrust cases, including monopoly challenges against Microsoft, VISA/MasterCard and American Airlines, numerous successful prosecutions of international cartels, and was also a leader in supporting cooperation among antitrust agencies throughout the world, executing major agreements with the European Union, Japan, and several other countries.

Before joining the Justice Department in 1995 as Principal Deputy to the Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Klein served as Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton. Prior to joining the Clinton Administration in 1993, Mr. Klein practiced law in Washington, D.C., for twenty years, beginning as a law clerk to Chief Judge David Bazelon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1973-74), and then to Justice Lewis Powell on the U.S. Supreme Court. He next worked at a public interest law firm, the Mental Health Law Project, and then as an associate and partner at Rogovin, Stern & Huge. In 1981, he joined two colleagues to start Onek, Klein & Farr, specializing in complex health care, general corporate and constitutional litigation, and appellate advocacy, having briefed and argued numerous cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals (winning 9 of the 11 cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court). In addition, he has also served as a visiting and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Mr. Klein has participated in the Big Brothers Program, served as Chairman of the Board of the Green Door, a pioneer community-based treatment program for mentally ill residents of the District of Columbia, and as Treasurer of the World Federation for Mental Health, and was a member of a 1991 U.S. Department of State Delegation examining issues of psychiatric abuse in the former Soviet Union. He was graduated from Columbia College (1967) and Harvard Law School (1971), both magna cum laude.

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The full text of Mr Klein's interview is available in the Fall/Winter 2002 issue of SternBusiness. Read Mr. Klein's interview in the online version of SternBusiness.