Former HBO executive Michael Lombardo has officially been appointed as president of global television at eOne.

As previously reported, Lombardo had been rumoured to take on the post after working as a consultant for eOne across scripted and unscripted.

His appointment comes five months after Hasbro finalized its acquisition of eOne for approximately US$3.8 billion.

In the new role, Lombardo will be tasked with driving eOne’s television strategy while overseeing the studio’s development and production efforts across both scripted and unscripted programming on a global basis.

Lombardo will additionally be responsible for managing the television adaptation of Hasbro brands, including Dungeons & Dragons and Transformers, while also directing eOne’s existing development and production slate, and creating a new slate of premium content for global audiences.

The veteran television executive previously spent more than three decades at HBO and spent his final 12 years at the premium U.S. cable network as president of programming. In that role, he was responsible for overseeing all of HBO’s and Cinemax’s programming initiatives, including HBO Films, HBO Sports, HBO Documentaries & Family and HBO Entertainment.

He departed HBO in 2016 after greenlighting such scripted titles as Girls, True Blood, The Leftovers, True Detective and Game of Thrones.

Most recently, Lombardo was a principal and producer at Film 44 where he executive produced such non-scripted titles as Allen Hughes’ limited docuseries The Defiant Ones and the HBO docuseries God Save Texas alongside Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney and Richard Linklater.

“Michael’s incredibly impressive history of success during his long tenure at HBO resulted in some of the most ground-breaking, iconic television series over the past two decades,” said Steve Bertram, eOne’s president of film & television, in a statement. “A true champion of creative excellence, Michael is the ideal leader to guide our television strategy at a time where audiences are demanding content of the highest quality.”

“Throughout my career, I have been driven by a passion for great stories. I’m excited to join eOne where we have some of the most beloved brands in the world to inspire our work, in addition to an outstanding talent-rich pipeline built by a team that I very much look forward to leading,” added Lombardo.

From Realscreen