Name Olafur Olafsson Role Author | ||
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Books Walking into the Night, The Journey Home, Absolution, Restoration, Valentines Similar People Howard Stringer, Jeffrey Bewkes, James L Barksdale, Stephen F Bollenbach, Kazuo Hirai | ||
Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (known internationally as Olaf Olafsson) is an Icelandic businessman, writer, and scientist, possibly best known for his tenure at Sony and his connection to the PlayStation video game console.
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Personal life
Ólafur was born in Reykjavik, Iceland on 26 September 1962. He studied physics as a Wien Scholar at Brandeis University. He lives in New York City with his wife Anna Ólafsdóttir and three children.
Literary career
He is the author of three previous novels, The Journey Home, Absolution and Walking Into the Night, and a story collection, Valentines. His books have been published to critical acclaim in more than twenty languages. He is the recipient of the O. Henry Award and the Icelandic Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize, and has twice been nominated for the IMPAC Award.
Business career
Ólafur was the founder, president and chief executive officer of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Inc., a unit of Sony Corporation established in 1991. He built and managed its businesses in the United States and Europe. During his six-year tenure, he directed the worldwide operations of Sony’s entertainment software and hardware divisions and was responsible for the introduction of the acclaimed PlayStation. He held several other positions at Sony, having begun his career at the company in 1985.
Ólafur was president of Advanta Corporation, since March 1998 and a member of its board of directors since 1997.
He is the Executive Vice President of Time Warner Before assuming his current position, Ólafur was Vice Chairman of Time Warner Digital Media where he was responsible for developing strategic business plans for Time Warner’s digital media businesses.