Howard Stringer

Sir Howard Stringer (born 19 February 1942) is a Welsh-American businessman. He had a 30-year career at CBS, culminating in him serving as the president of CBS News from 1986 to 1988, then president of CBS from 1988 to 1995. He served as chairman of the board, chairman, president and CEO of Sony Corporation from 2005 to 2012. He is also the head of the board of trustees of the American Film Institute and now serves as a non-executive director of the BBC. He was knighted in 1999.

Stringer was born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of Marjorie Mary (née Pook), a Welsh schoolteacher, and Harry Stringer, a sergeant in the Royal Air Force.

His younger brother, Rob Stringer, was president of Sony Music Label Group.

Stringer attended 11 secondary schools by the time he was 16, including Oundle School in Northamptonshire. He received a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford in Modern History.

Stringer moved to the United States in 1965. After working at CBS's flagship station WCBS-TV for six weeks, he was drafted into the United States Army, and served as a military policeman in Saigon for ten months in the Vietnam War. He did not serve in combat, but was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious achievement.

Stringer returned to CBS, where he had a 30-year career. He started in a series of lowly jobs, including answering backstage phones for The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1976, he became executive producer of the documentary series CBS Reports. Then, from 1981 to 1984, he was executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. In 1986, he became president of CBS News as a whole. He then served as president of CBS from 1988 to 1995, where he was responsible for all the broadcast activities of its entertainment, news, sports, radio and television stations. During Stringer's tenure, CBS gained the services of David Letterman with his Late Show but also lost National Football League rights to the upstart Fox Broadcasting Company, leading several CBS affiliates to align with the latter.

Stringer left CBS in 1995 to become CEO of Tele-TV, a newly created media and technology company formed by US telecoms Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and Pacific Telesis, as well as Creative Artists Agency. Tele-TV represented an early attempt at a video on demand service, which streamed content over the phone network. The company was unsuccessful, and shut down most of its operations in early 1997, after having spent roughly $500 million. Stringer left at that time.

Stringer began work at Sony in May 1997 as president of its US operational unit (Sony Corporation of America). He was made a Sony group executive officer in May 1998.

From 22 June 2005, Stringer served as Chairman of Sony, overseeing businesses such as Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Financial Holdings, succeeding Nobuyuki Idei. On 1 April 2009, he became president of Sony Corporation and ousted Ryoji Chubachi in what was seen as prelude to broader corporate restructuring. Stringer also served as executive chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Corporation of America, and as president of Sony Broadband Entertainment Corporation since March 2000.

Stringer has received the following awards and honours:

U.S. Army Commendation Medal for meritorious achievement during the Vietnam War

Radio and Television News Directors Foundation's First Amendment Leadership Award, 1996

UJA-Federation of New York's Steven J. Ross Humanitarian Award, May 1999

Royal Television Society Welsh Hall of Fame, November 1999

In July 1978, Stringer married Jennifer A. Kinmond Patterson. They have two children.

He became a naturalised American citizen in 1985.

Stringer was portrayed by Peter Jurasik in the 1996 HBO film The Late Shift, about the conflict between Jay Leno and David Letterman during Stringer's tenure at CBS in the early 1990s.

He appeared on the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs in 2013.