Sir Howard Stringer was in Los Angeles late last month, shuttling among the weekend’s pre-Oscar parties given by the likes of Barry Diller, the Hollywood mogul turned Internet commerce magnate, when his cellphone rang. Nobuyuki Idei, Sony’s chairman and CEO and Sir Howard’s boss, was calling from Japan with some startling news to share: Sir Howard, chairman and CEO of the United States unit of the Sony Corporation, was almost certainly to become Idei’s successor, according to people closely involved in the succession plan. The final choice had pitted Sir Howard, 63, a former television news producer and executive, and for the last eight years, overseer of Sony’s music, movie and electronics divisions in the United States, against Ken Kutaragi, an executive deputy president considered the company’s chief visionary. It was Kutaragi, 54, who built Sony’s PlayStation video game unit into a roaring success.By choosing Sir Howard, Sony gave the triumph to the diplomat over the technocrat, the sophisticated corporate manager rather than the brilliant but less polished Kutargi. The groundbreaking Japanese technology and entertainment company had stumbled financially and technologically in recent years partly because of divisions between its engineering and its entertainment units. It needed someone to pull its parts together so that it did not lose more ground to relative newcomers in consumer electronics like Apple Computer and its iPod, or the rapidly growing electronics manufacturers in South Korea and China that are combining next-generation flat-panel television and superclean chip-making operations at lower cost.So, after a weeklong series of discussions in Tokyo the announcement was made that Sir Howard would be named the first non-Japanese CEO at Sony in its 59 years. A limber corporate politician, Sir Howard has a knack for winning trust and respect even when delivering bad news. His reputation, for instance, survived the layoffs of hundreds at CBS News. And that image has served him well in a country like Japan and a company like Sony, known for their consensual culture and where the in-your-face corporate politics of American business is rarely welcome. ‘‘He can explain each side to the other,’’ said Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, a former colleague and a friend who has known him for more than 35 years. ‘‘Howard is a marvellous translator.’’At a news conference yesterday, Sir Howard outlined his vision for the company.‘‘We would accelerate cross-company collaboration,’’ he said, ‘‘thereby revitalising the company and promoting creativity. Growth cannot be achieved just through cost reduction. We need new projects, new ideas, new strategies, new alliances and a shared vision. All of our managers must have the authority and the will to manage.’’ That soothing language seemed to satisfy even Kutaragi. Sir Howard at first was in charge only of an odd mix of properties that included movie theaters and a shopping mall. But soon he was handed the American electronics division, then movies and music.He strengthened relations with Idei by inviting him to events like the WEFin Davos and to small dinner parties he held in New York. He speaks little Japanese, but Sir Howard — a native of Wales, graduate of Oxford, Vietnam war veteran, producer of the Evening News with Rather and chief of all of CBS — can bond with almost anyone, according to friends and colleagues. —NYT
