--- description: Find out why Shari Redstone is one of the 100 most influential people of 2020. title: Shari Redstone: The 100 Most Influential People of 2020 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2b733d9874c4ffc/698a125fb3fce3505c0c7275/time-100-Shari-Redstone.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 22, 2020 # Shari Redstone by Arianna Huffington  President of National Amusements and vice-chairwoman of CBS Corporation and Viacom, Shari Redstone is photographed for Forbes Magazine on September 17, 2019 in New York City. PUBLISHED IMAGE. CREDIT MUST READ: Jamel Toppin/The Forbes Collection via Contour RA. (Photo by Jamel Toppin/The Forbes Collection via Contour RA by Getty Images) President of National Amusements and vice-chairwoman of CBS Corporation and Viacom, Shari Redstone is photographed for Forbes Magazine on September 17, 2019 in New York City. PUBLISHED IMAGE. CREDIT MUST READ: Jamel Toppin/The Forbes Collection via Contour RA. (Photo by Jamel Toppin/The Forbes Collection via Contour RA by Getty Images)Jamel Toppin—The Forbes Collection/Contour RA/Getty Images It’s like a Hollywood story: a woman takes over from her father to run the family business her grandfather helped build, and along the way, she confronts—and dispatches—challenge after challenge as she ultimately proves the doubters wrong. Over the past few years, Shari Redstone, now the chairperson of ViacomCBS, ended more than a decade of legal wrangling over who would succeed her father [Sumner Redstone, who died this August at the age of 97,](https://time.com/5878726/sumner-redstone-dies-97/ "undefined") at the helm of the family’s sprawling media empire, which includes Viacom, CBS, Paramount Pictures and many other divisions. She’s proved herself every bit as tough and shrewd a businessperson as her extraordinary father, leading the [$12 billion merger of CBS and Viacom last year](https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/cbs-viacom-merger-complete-redstone-bob-bakish-1203424316/ "undefined"). But she’s also done it her own way—with grace and humanity, proving that strength is not incompatible with empathy and warmth. Every time I see Shari, we spend more time talking about her grandchildren than we do about business (which includes her role as an investor in Thrive Global). Certainly she has more challenges ahead. She’s taken over at a time of profound disruption in the entertainment and media industries. But with the succession battles behind her, she’s busy with plans to expand into new technologies, digital streaming and international markets as arguably the most powerful woman in Hollywood. Shari is a true trailblazer, and whatever she does next, it will be a sequel well worth watching. _Huffington is founder and CEO of Thrive Global_ Shari Redstone Is on the 2020 TIME 100 List ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2020/5888411/shari-redstone/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2020/5888411/shari-redstone/"},"headline":"Shari Redstone","datePublished":"2020-09-22T23:01:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:16.080Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2020/5888411/shari-redstone/","keywords":["TIME 100","T100 2020","T100 2020 Titans"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2b733d9874c4ffc/698a125fb3fce3505c0c7275/time-100-Shari-Redstone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2b733d9874c4ffc/698a125fb3fce3505c0c7275/time-100-Shari-Redstone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2020/5888411/shari-redstone/","name":"Shari Redstone"}}]}] ```