Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (or "Pinch") is the chairman and publisher of the New York Times, which his family has owned for more than a century.

In 1896, Sulzburger's great-grandfather, Adolph Simon Ochs, bought a tiny, nearly bankrupt paper called the New York Times. By the time he handed over the paper to his son, Arthur Hays Sulzburger, three decades later, Ochs had transformed the Times into the most authoritative daily in the country. Arthur Hays Sulzburger looked after the paper until the '60s, when it was turned over to Orvil Dryfoos; two years later, it was passed to Pinch's father, Arthur Ochs Sulzburger Sr. (or "Punch"). Ultimately, Punch selected his son, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., to replace him. But "Young Arthur" was hardly the obvious choice. Irreverent, goofy, and a little immature, he wasn't seen as an ideal fit for the all-important job. Mindful, perhaps, that the very same charges had been made against him when he took over, Punch went ahead anyway and named him publisher in 1992.

Arthur Jr. was 40 when he assumed the publisher title. He'd started out as a reporter at the Raleigh Times and the Associated Press before joining the family paper in 1978 as a Washington correspondent. Moving to the business end of the family concern in the mid-'80s, he worked in the production division and as an assistant publisher. He spent five years as publisher and moved up to chairman of the company in 1997, after his father relinquished the title. Many expected Jr. to have trouble keeping the paper afloat when he took over. But he managed to defy expectations and lead the company through a period of explosive growth during his first decade: Pinch was responsible for turning the Times into a national newspaper—50 percent of its subscribers now live outside New York. It was during his early tenure that the paper added color to its pages, introduced a series of less newsy—but very profitable—new sections that focused on style, home design, and food, expanded with the acquisitions of more than a dozen newspapers like the Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune, and added a paywall to online service. Arthur Jr. also helped refresh the corporate culture of the once stodgy paper, which had long had a reputation for being inhospitable to women, blacks, and gays. [Image via Getty]