Recent Comcast personnel moves: A new board member; Exec finally leaves for Sprint, and one will split time between NYC & Philly

Tom Paine

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Comcast appointed David C. Novak to its Board of Directors last week.

David C. Novak

Novak last served as Executive Chairman of quick service restaurant group YUM Brands, leaving earlier this year.


Though much respected as a business leader, some eyebrow were raised when Novak departed YUM wth a nest egg of $234 million, almost all in a tax-deferred compensation account, exempt from the annual contribution limits imposed on ordinary 401(k)s. The total compensation doesn't seem out of line comparatively with peers for an executive who ran a huge company successfully for 15 years, but some contrasted his earnings to that of the average Yum hourly restaurant worker.

Given the President-elect's fondness for KFC, one of YUM's brands, its surprising that Novak didn't end up with a cabinet position in Washington.




Rob Roy officially joined Sprint as Chief Digital Officer last week, after a detour of several months.

Comcast had filed suit in June against Roy for violating a non-compete clause in his contract, after he indicated his intent to leave Comcast, where he had held a somewhat similar position, to go to Sprint.

After much legal wrangling, an agreement was reached allowing him to finally move on.

Though the use of non-competes has been restricted in several states and they have often been used as a club against employee freedom of movement, sometimes they make sense. In Roy's case, the issue may have been what he knew about Comcast's emerging wireless plans,which certainly could have been an issue as he was moving to Sprint.

Roy didn't spend much time at Comcast, having joined it from Time Warner Cable in September 2015.




In November, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal jointly promoted Kathy Kelly-Brown to SVP Strategic Initiatives. She will be responsible for identifying creative, technological and strategic opportunities across the entire portfolio of both Comcast and NBCUniversal, and will report to both Neil Smit on the Cable side and Steve Burke on the NBCU side, splitting time between New York and Philadelphia.

An NBCU veteran, she replaces Maggie McLean Suniewick, who recently was promoted to the newly created role of President, NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises.