Ted Turner was co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; chairman of the Turner Foundation, Inc., which supports efforts for improving air and water quality, developing a sustainable energy future to protect the earth’s climate, safeguarding environmental health, maintaining wildlife habitat protection, and developing practices and policies to curb population growth rates; chairman of the United Nations Foundation, which promotes a more peaceful, prosperous and just world; and a partner in the Ted's Montana Grill restaurant chain. He was also chairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc.

Turner was the recipient of honorary degrees, industry awards, and civic honors, including being named TIME Magazine’s 1991 Man of the Year, Broadcasting and Cable’s Man of the Century in 1999, and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in 2009. Turner also received the 2011 Palazzo Strozzi Foundation’s Renaissance Man of the Year award and the Overseas Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and he was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

His books include Call Me Ted (2008); The Art of Consistency with Ted Turner (2000); and The Racing Edge (1984). Turner was the coauthor of The Story of America's Cup, 1851-2007 (2007) and An America's Cup Treasury: The Lost Levick Photographs, 1893-1937 (2000).

image: Eskinder Debebe/UN Foundation