HBO Names Jessica Holscott Chief Financial Officer

By Brian Steinberg

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – HBO named Jessica Holscott as is new executive vice president and chief financial officer: She will replace Joe Tarulli, a 27-year veteran of who has decided to retire at the end of the year.

Holscott had been the head of investor relations at Time Warner, which was acquired earlier this year by AT&T in a deal valued at $85.4 billion.

“I have worked very closely with Jessica over the last two years, first in her role as Time Warner Head of Investor Relations, and most recently in her role as the AT&T/Time Warner merger integration lead. She is not only an exceptional talent in her field but an executive of enormous character who I believe will easily become a part of HBO’s vaunted senior management,” said Richard Plepler, HBO’s  chairman and chief executive officer,l in a prepared statement. “Joe has been inextricably linked to HBO’s extraordinary journey from a nascent premium cable network to a global entertainment powerhouse. To say that we will miss him seems a clichéd understatement, but he is indeed an irreplaceable part of the fabric of HBO’s family.”

Prior to Time Warner, Ms. Holscott spent 16 years at General Electric, where she  worked her way up to Chief Financial Officer of GE Asset Management. At that unit, she she led all financial operations for what is one of the largest managers of institutional assets in the world. During her time at GE, she also served as senior vice president and chief financial officer for the NBC Universal TV Stations division.