“We impact the lives of our customers every day and are ingrained into the very fabric of how they get information, communicate, and consume entertainment,” says Comcast Cable Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Cathy Avgiris (’80) of her company’s impact on modern society. “Seeing who is calling you right on your TV, using your tablet to change the channel, using voice commands from your smartphone to obtain a recommendation for what to watch, or texting from your computer are all ways in which we have integrated our product offerings to benefit how our customers share their experiences with friends and family.”
Comcast, a global media and technology company in the top 50 of the Fortune 500, has two primary businesses: Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is the nation’s largest video, high-speed Internet, and phone service provider to residential customers (under the Xfinity brand); the company provides those services to businesses as well. And Avgiris, who joined the company in 1992 as a regional vice president of finance, has played a key role in its evolution from a cable company to a media and technology powerhouse. “When I started with Comcast, the product offering consisted of video only, not even digital,” she explains. “I helped to launch the high-speed data product and the voice product, and now we have nearly 20 million Internet customers and more than 10 million voice customers. These two products—in addition to all the enhancements and innovation in our video service offering—have completely changed the landscape of how customers consume their information, communications, and entertainment.”
An accounting major with a minor in statistics, Avgiris spent 11 years in finance, first as an audit manager with accounting giant Touche Ross (later Deloitte & Touche) and then as CFO of Drexel Industries, a manufacturing company. (Baruch College’s reputation “helped open doors to the ‘Big Eight’ and launched my career in finance,” she notes.) So how does someone with a background in finance end up shaping today’s and tomorrow’s media and communications technology landscape and be hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “arguably the most powerful woman in the industry”? “The role of finance at Comcast includes a broader operations role as well,” says Avgiris of her career path, which has included roles as CFO of the high-speed data group, CFO of the telephony group, senior VP and general manager of Comcast Digital Voice, and, most recently, executive VP and general manager of communications and data services for Comcast’s Xfinity Internet, Xfinity Voice, and consumer wireless business.
Avgiris cites launching the voice business for Comcast as a particularly memorable accomplishment. “I didn’t have any telecommunications experience in my background, and at the time, most customers would never have trusted their ‘cable’ company with their phone service,” she observes. “But we offered a unique package of features that provided value for customers and launched the notion of bundling, as in the Triple Play package.” The results speak for themselves: “Comcast is now one of the largest phone providers in the U.S.,” she notes with pride.
Another point of pride is Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, which stemmed from Avgiris’s goal to have broadband in every household. “Broadband is that kind of game-changing product,” she stresses. “But every household is not the same, and we soon realized that a significant portion of American households were not taking advantage of all the Internet had to offer because of three main barriers: cost of the service, access to low-cost equipment, and relevancy of the Internet to those who were digitally less literate.” Internet Essentials, which recently kicked off its third year and announced that it has now connected more than 220,000 families, or approximately 900,000 low-income Americans, to the power of the Internet at home, addresses those barriers by providing affordable Internet, the option to purchase a low-cost computer, and opportunities for free digital literacy training. It is designed to help bridge the digital divide among Internet users of all ages, especially families with school-aged children.
Now with responsibility for all functional and programmatic as well as financial operations of Comcast Cable, Avgiris, who was appointed CFO of Comcast Cable on July 1, is ready for the challenges ahead. “The technology sector we are in is evolving at an increasing pace, with new competitors offering alternative ways for customers to consume their video content,” she observes. “Competition makes us sharper as a company and focuses our attention on innovation to keep the business growing. At the same time, I see opportunities to streamline how we do business in many areas, so that we can be more agile and be able to keep up with this ever-changing landscape.”
—Sally Fay