Richard Plepler

Plepler was born in Manchester, Connecticut to a Jewish family.[7][8] He is the elder of two brothers raised in Manchester.[1][9] His parents were active in Democratic politics.[1] His father was a trial lawyer.[10] He attended the Loomis Chaffee School[11][12] before graduating from Franklin & Marshall College.[13]

Plepler studied government in college and then moved to Washington in 1981 and worked for Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.[10]

Plepler later moved to New York City in 1984 where he opened a public relations firm and produced a series of interviews for The Atlantic magazine and a documentary on Israel and the Palestinian conflict.[1] In 2007, he was appointed as co-president of HBO with Michael Lombardo during which HBO began production on Game of Thrones, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, and The Newsroom and Strike Back.[13]

Plepler initially joined Time Warner in 1992.[1] In 2013, he was appointed as the chairman and CEO of HBO.[13]

On February 28, 2019, it was announced that Plepler was leaving HBO.[14] In his resignation memo, Plepler stated that he had been with the network for "nearly 28 years."[6][5]

In January, 2020, The New York Times reported, "The gregarious executive, a quintessential New York power player who spent 27 years at HBO and left eight months after AT&T became its owner, is rebooting himself as a producer. And he will do it with Apple."[15]

In 2002, Plepler married Lisa Ruchlamer;[16] they have one daughter, Dan Reed .