Pecker's Resumé   

Age: 48

Some of the jobs he's held:
CEO of American Media Inc.
President and CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines
Vice president, controller of Diamandis Communications Inc.
Assistant controller of CBS Inc.
Senior auditor at Price Waterhouse and Co.

People in the media he admires: Si Newhouse, for his ability to recognize new markets before anyone else and capitalize on them with his magazines, and Barry Diller for his foresight about new media and its power. (Diller is CEO of USA Networks, which has holdings in cable, Internet and film companies.) Pecker also admires Mel Karmazin for turning around CBS while he was president and CEO and for engineering its merger with Viacom.

Where Pecker hopes his empire will be in 10 years: "I expect that our current revenues of $500 million will grow to $5 billion in 10 years, and we would be involved in all forms of media‹magazines, the Internet, books, TV programs, movies and more."