AccuWeather Appoints Edward Arditte and Robert Friedman to Board of Directors

Finance and media industry leaders bring unique experience to the eminent global leader in digital weather

AccuWeather Global Weather Center – September 24, 2014 – AccuWeather, Inc., the global leader in digital weather information, today announced it has appointed Edward Arditte, Co-President and Chief Financial Officer of Fairway Market and Robert Friedman, CEO of Bungalow Media + Entertainment, to its Board of Directors. The appointments of Arditte and Friedman reflect AccuWeather’s continued growth as a powerful force in weather technology and media.

“We are very pleased to have Ed Arditte and Bobby Friedman join our Board of Directors,” said Dr. Joel N. Myers, President and Founder of AccuWeather, Inc. “AccuWeather continues to gain velocity as the dominant force in global weather. Ed’s financial expertise and Bobby’s insight into entertainment will be valuable strategic resources in further advancing our growth and direction.”

Prior to joining Fairway Market, Arditte gained over 25 years of finance and operating experience with large, multi-industry companies including Tyco International Ltd., where he served as a Senior Vice President with responsibility for strategy, investor relations, and communications. He had an independent consulting firm specializing in finance, strategy, and investor relations and served as the Chief Financial Officer of BancBoston Capital, the private equity division of Fleet National Bank.

Arditte also spent 16 years at Textron, Inc. in a variety of roles including Vice President & Treasurer, Chief Financial Officer of a major operating division, and Vice President of Investor Relations and Risk Management. He began his career as a corporate banker at Security Pacific National Bank. Arditte earned a B.A. degree from the University of California at Riverside and an M.B.A. degree from Boston University.

Robert Friedman, a 30-year veteran of the entertainment business, is CEO and founder of Bungalow Media + Entertainment. Bungalow is an integrated entertainment company that develops, produces, and distributes content across all media platforms including television, film, live events, and digital media. Bungalow sits comfortably at the nexus point between television and digital networks, creative talent, and brands. With joint venture and strategic partners including Horizon Media, the fastest growing media services company with domestic billing in excess of $4 billion to the formation of a branded content studio and Bungalow Horizon and Cisneros Companies, owner of Venevison, to reach US Hispanic & English speaking audiences. Bungalow has a wide array of management clients represented through its Bungalow Storied Media division, including The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and New York Magazine.

Friedman was a key member of the original development team at MTV Networks, where he worked on MTV, VH-1, Nickelodeon, and on the development of the pay TV subscription service, The Movie Channel. He was President and a Managing Partner of Classic Media: Harvey & Golden Books Entertainment, the New York-based family entertainment company now owned by DreamWorks Animation. Friedman held a variety of key executive positions at AOL Time Warner and spent a decade at New Line Cinema where he held the dual roles of Co-Chairman in charge of Worldwide Theatrical Marketing, Licensing and Merchandising and President of New Line Television, which he launched in 1991. During his tenure at New Line Films, his films included “Austin Powers,” the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “Dumb & Dumber” among others. He served as Chief Marketing Officer for Time Warner and President of AOL, Interactive Marketing, TV, & Ad Sales.

Friedman most recently served as President of Media & Entertainment at @radical.media, whose producing credits include the Emmy Award winning Paul Simon film “Under African Skies,” the pilot for AMC’s “Mad Men,” Grey Goose’s “Iconoclasts,” “Oprah Winfrey Presents Masterclass,” and “THINKR,” a recent original premium YouTube channel, among others.

Friedman has been honored as “Media Man of the Year” by ADWEEK, and named one of the top 100 marketers in the country by AdAge. He serves on the Board of The International Academy of TV Arts and Sciences, the TV industry’s National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE), Mt Sinai, and Columbia Business School. Friedman has been a member of Young Presidents' Organization (YPO/WPO) for over two decades.

About AccuWeather, Inc. and AccuWeather.comEvery day over a billion people worldwide rely on AccuWeather to help them plan their lives, protect their businesses, and get more from their day. AccuWeather provides hourly and Minute by Minute™ forecasts with Superior Accuracy™ for nearly 3 million locations worldwide, with customized content and engaging video presentations available on smart phones, tablets, free wired and mobile internet sites, connected TVs, and Internet appliances, as well as via radio, television, and newspapers. Founded in 1962 by Dr. Joel N. Myers - a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society who was recognized as one of the top entrepreneurs in American history by Entrepreneur Magazine's Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurs - AccuWeather also delivers a wide range of highly-customized enterprise solutions to media, business, government, and institutions, as well as news, weather content, and video for more than 180,000 third-party websites. AccuWeather's CEO, Barry Lee Myers, is a recognized expert in global weather information issues and one of the world most recognized advocates for cooperative relationships between government weather agencies and the weather industry.

Report a Typo