Michelle Guthrie, Star's vice-president of business development, now becomes the most senior woman in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation media empire.
Guthrie will manage 1,800 people employed by the pay-TV network in 53 countries across the Middle East and Asia. She has worked for News Corp since 1994 and was a senior legal counsel at Foxtel in the US and BSkyB in the UK. She moved to Star TV in Hong Kong in 2000.
Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp, said Guthrie was "one of a handful of people in Asia with over a decade of truly in-depth pay-television experience."
His son James said he was confident his successor would be "a dynamic and energetic leader for Star."
Under the leadership of Murdoch Jnr, who controversially took the helm at BSkyB last week, Star TV recorded its first profit last year, led by growth in India. However, Guthrie will still have the challenge of breaking even on the Chinese mainland by 2005.
Other internal candidates for the job included Star India's head Peter Mukerjea and head of Chinese operations Jamie Davis.
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