Tom Freston formerly served as President and CEO of Viacom, until his resignation on September 5, 2006. Freston was named Co-President & Co-COO of Viacom (along with Leslie Moonves) in 2004 when President & COO Mel Karmazin stepped down. The dual appointment with Moonves led to the Viacom board of directors agreeing to split the corporation into two separate companies after Chairman & CEO Sumner Redstone retired. Freston was named President of the new Viacom, Inc., which included the MTV and BET television networks and Paramount Pictures. Viacom received increasing ratings every year under Freston, and experienced tremndous growth in new markets, both domestic and overseas. Freston also pushed for the launch of numerous supplementary product lines featuring various characters and segments from popular series within his networks. Prior to Viacom he was one of the founding members of MTV: Music Television, and as the head of marketing, created the “I want my MTV” ad campaign. In 1987 he became the CEO of MTV Networks. Freston currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Emerson College in Boston and has been speculated to be one of the likely nominees for Yahoo’s new board of directors proposed by Microsoft.