Alfred R. Kahn

Alfred Robert Kahn (born January 18, 1947) is an American executive. From 1991 to 2011, he was Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment, a company that is a global provider of children's entertainment and merchandise licensing. He previously led the licensing division for the Coleco company. In 1988, he turned Leisure Concepts, Inc. into 4Kids Entertainment, since then being the chairman and CEO of that company. In 2002, he founded the National Law Enforcement and Firefighters Children's Foundation. In 2012 he co-founded CraneCahn LLC and is currently the CEO and co-owner of that company.

Kahn also serves on the Board of Directors of the Federal Drug Agents Foundation, Children's Tumor Foundation, Stephen Gaynor School for Learning Difficulties, Long Island University, and Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project. He has also appeared in various conferences surrounding the anime industry.

Career

Born in Brooklyn to Murray and Lilyane Kaplan Kahn, Alfred R. Kahn graduated from C.W. Post College at Long Island University. Previously the head of the licensing division for Coleco, Kahn joined Leisure Concepts, Inc., turning that company into 4Kids Entertainment, for which he became Vice Chairman in July 1987 and later Chairman and CEO in 1991. 4Kids eventually became the largest trading entity in North America in the 1990s due to its success of licensing Japanese anime series Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! among many others, as well as producing American series like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Kahn has been the executive producer for numerous other 4Kids properties, including G.I. Joe Sigma 6 and Cubix.

Robert Kahn (composer)

Robert Kahn (July 21, 1865 – May 29, 1951) was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher.

Life

Kahn was born in Mannheim, the second son of Bernhard Kahn and Emma Eberstadt. One of his seven siblings included the wealthy financier Otto Kahn whose son Roger Wolfe Kahn was a successful jazz musician, composer and aviator. His parents belonged to a distinguished family of bankers and merchants. In 1882, Kahn entered the Königlichen Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied for the next three years. Between 1885 and 1886, he continued his musical education under the tutelage of Josef Rheinberger in Munich. On a visit to Vienna the following year, Kahn met and befriended composer Johannes Brahms, who offered to make Kahn his pupil. Although Kahn declined the invitation out of diffidence, Brahms's music would exert a profound influence on his compositional style throughout his career.

After finishing his military service, Kahn worked as a freelance composer in Berlin until 1890. For the next three years he was employed as a Korrepetitor (rehearsal pianist) at the Stadttheater in Leipzig. Having been appointed lecturer in composition at his alma mater in 1894, Kahn was responsible for the training of some of the leading musical luminaries of 20th century classical music. Among his famous students were pianists Arthur Rubinstein and Wilhelm Kempff, the conductor Ferdinand Leitner, the composers Nikos Skalkottas and Günter Raphael, as well as the violinist Karl Klinger.