Brian L. Roberts: Taking It To The Next Level

Brian L. Roberts was born on June 28, 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and also currently resides there. His father Ralph J. Roberts co-founded cable provider Comcast Corporation. Brian only had one job in mind and this was to work for his father’s company.  He obtained his Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1981.

Brian was appointed president of Comcast in 1990. He became CEO in 2002 and chairman in 2004. Along the way he built Comcast into the largest cable-television operator in the U.S. The firm is the owner and manager of NBCUniversal, which operates 30 news, entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures and Universal Parks and Resorts.

Aside from this Comcast is majority owner of Comcast-Spectator, which as major stakes in the Philadelphia Flyers NHL hockey team and the Wells Fargo Center, a large multipurpose arena in Philadelphia.

Brian has been active outside of Comcast. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) where he served as Chairman for two consecutive terms from 2005 to 2007 and from 1995 to 1996 a time when the landmark deregulatory 1996 Telecommunications Act became law.

Brian is Director Emeritus of CableLabs, which is the research and development consortium for the cable industry; he served three terms as Chairman. He is a member of the CEO only, Business Roundtable, an organization based in Washington, D.C.  Brian also served on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

His leadership skills have been recognized in business and in the industry.  In 2009, Institutional Investor magazine named him one of America’s top CEOs for the sixth year in a row. In 2011, he and his father were inducted into Babson College’s Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame. In 2012, Fortune Magazine recognized Brian as “Businessperson of the Year.

Brian is an exceptional business executive who brought Comcast to the next level.

 

The Son Also Rises

There are many advantages of having your own father as a co-founder of a large company. If you join you can have the fast-track way to reaching the top post. This big advantage is also a major disadvantage as people view that you’ve reached the top more on connections than actual performance. There is also the inevitable comparison with the father if he is as good.

The only way to counter this is to prove your detractors wrong by performing well on the job. This is what Brian L. Roberts seems to have done. There have been news about his large compensations but there’s hardly any mention that his not fit for the job.

Roberts is the chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation which was co-founded by his father Ralph. This is one of the major cable companies in the U.S. that also provides entertainment, communications and product services. Under Roberts stewardship Comcast became a Fortune 100 company. Comcast is the county’s largest video provider, largest internet provider, and fourth largest phone company.

Comcast majority owns and manages NBCUniversal, which has broadcast networks, local television stations, theme parks, and a major motion picture company. The company is also the majority owner of Comcast-Spectator that in turn has major holdings in the Philadelphia Flyers NHL hockey team and the Wells Fargo Center.

Roberts is a member of the Business Roundtable, a CEO only group in Washington, D.C. and serves on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He has a B.S. from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. Like his father he’s making his own major mark in the world of business.