Stamford, Conn., USA - May 16, 2014, Stamford, Conn., USA - Charter Communications, Inc. and Comcast Corporation announced that Michael S. Willner has agreed to serve as president and CEO of SpinCo.
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SpinCo is the new cable company that will be spun off from Comcast upon completion of the Comcast – Time Warner Cable merger and the Comcast – Charter transactions.
SpinCo will have a nine-member board of directors, three of whom will be appointed by Charter, including Charter President and CEO, Tom Rutledge, who will serve as the non-executive Chairman of the Board.
Comcast will appoint three of the remaining six members of the board and will select three more from a list provided by Charter. These six board members will be independent of both Charter and Comcast.
Mr. Willner will oversee the operations of SpinCo, which will serve customers in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Mr. Willner was a co-founder and CEO of Insight Communications from 1985 through 2012, when Insight was sold to Time Warner Cable. He began his career in 1974 at Vision Cable Communications, a division of Advanced Publications and a part of the Newhouse family's media investments, where he rose to become the Chief Operating Officer. He currently serves as President and CEO of privately-held Penthera Partners, a software licensing company focused on cloud-to-mobile technology. He will remain involved with that company as a member of its board.
Mr. Willner twice served as Chairman of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), the industry's principal trade association. In addition, he was Chairman of the NCTA's political action committee (CablePAC) from 2000 until 2012, Chairman of the Board of the Cable Center from 2007 through 2011, was on the executive committee of CableLabs, and the boards of C-SPAN and the Walter Kaitz Foundation. ■
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