Richard Plepler is Chairman and CEO of Home Box Office, Inc., responsible for the overall management of the world’s most successful pay TV service, which provides the two television networks – HBO and Cinemax – to over 127 million subscribers worldwide.  He was named to this position in January 2013.

Renowned worldwide, the HBO and Cinemax services offer the most popular subscription video-on-demand products, HBO On Demand^® and Cinemax On Demand^® as well as HBO GO^® and MAX GO^®, HD feeds and multiplex channels.  Internationally, HBO branded television networks, along with the subscription video-on-demand products HBO On Demand and HBO GO, bring HBO services to over 70 countries.  HBO programming is sold into over 150 countries globally.

Under his leadership, HBO's original productions continue to raise the bar with some of the most innovative, honored and critically respected programming on television including two of HBO’s newest shows, the comedy Silicon Valley and the topical talk show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. True Detective, which debuted in early 2014, became the most-watched freshman series in HBO’s history. Now In its fourth season, Game of Thrones is a global juggernaut, watched by nearly 18 million viewers per episode in the U.S. alone.

As co-president from 2007 to 2012, Plepler, in partnership with Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming, greenlit some of HBO’s most acclaimed and successful series including True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, The Newsroom and Game of Thrones, which rank among the top programs in the network’s history, as well as first season Emmy® Awards for Girls and Veep. Additional award-winning programs include the miniseries Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet, and The Pacific; HBO Films’ Behind the Candelabra, Too Big to Fail, and Game Change. Plepler and Lombardo also shepherded Cinemax's first foray into primetime originals with the popular action series Strike Back.

Plepler is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations, where he serves on the President’s Advisory Board, and The Trilateral Commission.  He also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Asia Society and the New York Public Library, and is on the National Advisory Board of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and the Museum of the Moving Image. In 2013, he was inducted into Broadcasting and Cable magazine’s Hall of Fame. In 2014, The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the world's largest and most prestigious annual awards and celebration of creative excellence in advertising and communications, named Plepler Media Person of the Year.

Plepler resides in New York City with his wife Lisa and daughter Eden.