Stringer moved to the United States in 1965. After working at CBS’s flagship station WCBS-TV for six weeks, he was drafted into the United States Army, and served as a military policeman in Saigon for ten months in the Vietnam War. He did not serve in combat, but was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious achievement. Stringer returned to CBS, where he had a 30-year career. He started in a series of lowly jobs, including answering backstage phones for The Ed Sullivan Show. He then became a journalist, producer and senior executive. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1985. He served as president of CBS from 1988 to 1995, where he was responsible for all the broadcast activities of its entertainment, news, sports, radio and television stations.

Stringer was born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of Marjorie Mary (née Pook), a Welsh schoolteacher, and Harry Stringer, a sergeant in the Royal Air Force. In July 1978, he married Jennifer A. Kinmond Patterson. They have two children.

Sir Howard Stringer left CBS in 1995 to set up TELE-TV, a media and technology company formed by US telecoms Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, and Creative Artists Agency in February 1995. He left two years later to join Sony.

Stringer began work at Sony in May 1997 as president of its US operational unit (Sony Corporation of America). He was made a Sony group executive officer in May 1998.

Stringer attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire and 11 other secondary schools by the time he was 16. He received a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford in Modern History. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on 31 December 1999, and appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2013.

Since June 2005, he served as Chairman of Sony, overseeing businesses such as Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Financial Holdings. On 1 April 2009, he became president of Sony Corporation and ousted Ryoji Chubachi in what was seen as prelude to broader corporate restructuring. Stringer also served as executive chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Corporation of America, and as president of Sony Broadband Entertainment Corporation since March 2000.

On 1 February 2012, Sony announced that Stringer would step down as president and CEO, effective 1 April to be replaced by Kazuo Hirai, executive deputy president and chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment. Stringer relinquished his title of chairman of Sony and became chairman of the board of Sony in June (‘Chairman of Sony’ and ‘Chairman of the Board of Directors’ are separate positions at Sony). In June 2013, Stringer retired as chairman of the board of Sony.

As CEO, Stringer’s initial focus was on streamlining Sony’s electronics business, such as through its Bravia TV joint venture with Samsung. Stringer was instrumental in arranging Sony’s investment in Spotify, which earned Sony a profit of nearly $1 billion upon Sony’s partial exit in 2018. Nonetheless, Sony’s stock price fell by 60 percent from when Stringer assumed the role of group chairman until his resignation as CEO was announced in 2012, due in part to exchange rates and the effects of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.