Sony’s chairman Sir Howard Stringer is to leave the media-to-electronics giant this June. He was CEO and president from 2005, and stepped aside from those roles last April following a period of disastrous losses.

Kazuo Hirai is now running the business, and attempting to restructure the company and re-establish its once important position. Hirai is re-focusing on Sony’s ‘smart phone’ devices, including tablets and game consoles.

Stringer, born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1942, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999. Stringer moved to the USA in 1965, and was promptly drafted into the US Army. He served a year in Vietnam. He re-joined CBS and following a series of lowly positions at the broadcasting network became a journalist, producer and then executive Producer on CBS Reports from 1976-1981, followed by running the nightly CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (1981-1984).

He became president of the news division in 1986, and president of CBS itself in 1988. He left CBS in 1995 to set up Tele-TV, a pioneering VOD broadcasting venture set up by a conglomerate of US telcos. Launched in 1995 the business ceased operating in early 1997.   Stringer joined Sony in May 1997 as president of its US division.

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