Warner Bros. Pictures

Kevin
Tsujihara

Chairman / CEO

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Tsujihara has spent the past five years readying Warner Bros. for its digital future, which is poised to accelerate now that the studio has been absorbed along with HBO and Turner by telecom giant AT&T. He has focused on efforts to revive some of the valuable IP in the studio’s vaults, from DC Comics properties to Bugs Bunny and other classic WB toons. Tsujihara was promoted to the top job at Warner Bros. in March 2013, having joined the studio in 1994 in its finance department and quickly shifting over to business development. He ranks as the first Japanese-American executive to run a major studio. Earlier in his career, while he was working at accounting giant Ernst & Young, he helped launch the early Internet venture QuickTax Inc.

Career

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Quicktax Inc.
Ernst & Young

Education

University of Southern California (CA, USA)
Stanford University (CA, USA)

Variety Honors

2017 Variety500 Honoree

News from Variety

Michelle Yeoh, Kevin Tsujihara to Be Honored at Asia Society U.S.-China Summit

Iconic actress Michelle Yeoh (“Crazy Rich Asians,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) is to be honored alongside Warner Bros. chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara at the U.S.-China Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles later this month. Elizabeth Daley and Steven J. Ross, dean and Time Warner professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, respectively, will also be honored.Held at the Skirball Cultural Center on Oct. 30, the summit conference comes at a time of ratcheted-up tensions between China and the U.S. and...

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What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given in your career?: “It’s not original, but it’s been extremely resonant throughout my career: Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s important to learn early on that you’re not going to succeed at everything, and that real failure is when you stop pushing yourself and stop trying new things because you’re afraid of failing.”
What or who inspires you?: “I could say that I’m inspired by all of the talented people we work with every day who create the films, TV shows and games that we produce, but that’s a given. I’m really inspired by my parents. I look at the sacrifices they made and the challenges they faced, including being interned by the U.S. government, and yet they remained firmly committed to the American dream and everything it stands for—and instilled that in me and my siblings. They showed us by example that commitment and hard work are the keys to success.”