Jason Alan Kilar (; born April 26, 1971) is an American businessman. He was the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

WarnerMedia Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

from May 2020 to April 2022. He was previously an

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

executive, the founding CEO of the short-lived Vessel, and the CEO of

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

Early life and education

Jason Alan Kilar was born on April 26, 1971 in Pittsburgh, PA. He attended the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...

where he was a member of

Sigma Nu Sigma Nu () is an undergraduate college fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute on January 1, 1869. The fraternity was founded by James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles and James McIlvaine Riley shortly after Hopkins witnessed w ...

Fraternity. He graduated in 1993 and continued his education at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

(HBS), earning an MBA. Kilar entered HBS in the fall of 1995, and in his second year took a class called "Managing in the Marketspace", taught by

Jeffrey Rayport Jeffrey F. Rayport is an academic, author, consultant, and founder and chairman of Marketspace LLC, a strategic advisory practice that works with leading companies to reinvent how they interact with and relate to customers. Marketspace was a unit o ...

Career

Kilar served as an executive for

from 1997 to 2006, including as the senior vice president of its worldwide application software division. He helped found the streaming company

in 2007 and became its

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

(CEO). On January 4, 2013, he announced his resignation from the company after five years, together with Hulu CTO Rich Tom. The next month, Kilar joined the board of directors for

DreamWorks Animation DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a divisio ...

. In 2014, he announced Vessel, a subscription video service, where he was CEO and backed by investment companies Benchmark,

Greylock Partners Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in the consumer, enterprise software and infrastructure as wel ...

, and Bezos Expedition until the site was eventually sold to

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

in 2016. On April 1, 2020, WarnerMedia then-CEO

John Stankey John T. Stankey (born 1962) is an American businessman currently serving as CEO of AT&T Inc. and as a member of AT&T Inc.’s board of directors. He previously served as AT&T’s president and COO and was former CEO of WarnerMedia. Stankey led ...

announced that Kilar would be assuming the role effective May 1, 2020. Stankey announced that Kilar would be reporting to Stankey, who will remain COO of

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...

. On April 24, 2020, it was announced that Stankey will become the CEO of AT&T on July 1, 2020. In December 2020, Kilar announced that Warner Bros. films released in 2021 would be released on a streaming service at the same time as they were released in theaters. The prior practice was to release films to theaters for a 90-day period before releasing them in other formats. The move was decried by many in Hollywood, including

Christopher Nolan Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. His films have grossed $5&nb ...

and

Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve (; born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian filmmaker. He is a four-time recipient of the Canadian Screen Award (formerly Genie Award) for Best Direction, winning for '' Maelström'' in 2001, '' Polytechnique'' in 2009, ''Incendies ...

, while also being described as plainly violating the contractual rights of some of those who worked on the films. In March 2021, Kilar drew more ire by claiming that

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

is "really good for ratings" in conversation with

Fox Corporation Fox Corporation (stylized in all-caps as FOX Corporation) is a publicly traded American mass media company operated and controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Incorporated ...

Lachlan Murdoch Lachlan Keith Murdoch (; born 8 September 1971) is a British-Australian businessman and mass media heir. He is the executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, co-chairman of News Corp, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, and the f ...

. He later apologized for making this comment and added that "I would like nothing more than for this

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of in ...

to be well behind us". Kilar announced on April 5, 2022 that he would be stepping down as the WarnerMedia CEO in face of the soon-to-be-completed

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspec ...

of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kilar, Jason 1971 births American technology chief executives Harvard Business School alumni Living people UNC Kenan–Flagler Business School alumni Amazon (company) people Businesspeople from Pittsburgh American corporate directors DreamWorks Animation people Warner Bros. Discovery people 21st-century American businesspeople