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THE INVESTMENT GUIDE

REENGINEER YOUR RETIREMENT | SECOND ACTS

Sunnier Days on

Sesame Street

AFTER A MERGER KNOCKED HIM FROM HIS CEO’S PERCH, JEFFREY
DUNN CONSIDERED GLOBE-HOPPING. INSTEAD, HE HEADED TO
HARVARD AND THEN ON TO RETOOL AN ICONIC NOT-FOR-PROFIT.
BY KERRY HANNON

t the annual Halloween bash

last year, Jeffrey Dunn, the
63-year-old CEO of Sesame
A Workshop, didn’t dress up as
Bert or Ernie but as the Statue of Liberty. “I
was distraught by the divisiveness and the
toxicity in this country,” he says. “I wanted
to make a statement to our employees of
what we at Sesame stand for.”
His Lady Liberty costume worked on
another level, too. Six years ago, Dunn

gained the financial freedom to do any-
thing—or nothing at all. Mattel Inc. had
just paid $680 million for the company
where he was CEO, HIT Entertainment,
owner of Thomas the Tank Engine and

other children’s characters and program-
ming. Flush and out of a job, Dunn wanted
to work in the charitable sector. But his
wife, Karen, suggested they first take a few

years to travel the world and sit on the
beach. A temporary retirement, of sorts.
“I was like, ‘No, I am not ready for
that. Not sure if I ever will be,’ ’’ he recalls.
Anyway, Harvard was calling. Dunn had
earned his B.A. in history and his M.B.A.
there decades before. Now he’d been ad-
mitted to Harvard’s Advanced Leadership high school sweethearts who have been like) and DVD sales had been sliding for a
Initiative, a yearlong program for corporate married 36 years—is that spouses of fel- decade, and its operating losses were grow-
executives and professionals in their 50s lows are welcome on campus too. So while ing. “Sesame found me because I was a

and 60s interested in applying their skills Jeff dived into nonprofit accounting, media known entity in the kid space,’’ he says. Be-
to social problems. For a tuition of around and kid’s education and economics, Karen, fore taking over at HIT in 2008, he’d spent
$65,000 the handpicked fellows (for 2018, a nurse by training, studied art and music. 13 years at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, where
48 were chosen from more than 550 ap- Dunn began as a fellow in January he helped create Noggin (now Nick Jr.) as a
plicants) get to audit courses and hash out 2014. Then, midway through his year, a joint venture with Sesame Workshop.

prospective projects with professors and representative from Sesame’s board called Already in Harvard term-paper-writing VIKTOE KOEN FOR FORBES
fellow students. him for a consult. Th e nonprofi t’s licensing mode, Dunn delivered a ten-page report
What sealed the deal for the Dunns— revenues (from Tickle Me Elmo and the to Sesame’s board. By September he’d

110 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2018