Mark A. Coblitz is Senior Vice President Strategic Planning for Comcast Corporation. His primary responsibility is to develop new business opportunities particularly from emerging technologies. He has worked in the cable industry for over two decades, all for Comcast.
Mr. Coblitz has played key roles in many industry initiatives. He served for many years as a member of the CableLabs Technical Advisory Committee and was a member of the Technological Advisory Council of the Federal Communications Commission. He was involved in the earliest development of cable modems and was one the leaders who drove the development of DOCSIS as a common solution for the cable industry. He chaired the industry’s development of PacketCable, the technology that is the basis for the digital telephone service now deployed by the industry. He currently is the chair of CableLabs’ OpenCable Business Committee which oversees the development of common software solutions for the cable industry. He was one of four people who led the bidding for Sprint PCS in the first PCS spectrum auctions and served on Sprint PCS’s initial Operating Committee. He also led SpectrumCo’s bidding in the AWS spectrum auctions. Mr. Coblitz led the cable industry’s effort to secure the one-way “Plug-and-Play” agreement with the consumer electronics industry that was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2003 and the two-way agreement reached in 2008.
Teamed with Comcast’s Vice Chairman, Julian Brodsky, Mr. Coblitz made investments for Comcast in early Internet-based companies and helped create Comcast Interactive Capital, Comcast’s venture capital arm. He founded, and for many years led Comcast’s New Media Development Group that explored and developed new technology and business relationships relating to the cable business.
Mr. Coblitz was a recipient of the National Cable Television Association 2003 Vanguard Award for Science and Technology “for his skills as a technologist, strategist, and leader.” He was also named “Man of the Year” for 1999 by Communications, Engineering & Design (“CED”) Magazine, and “Broadband Innovator of the Year” for 2004 by Communications Technology Magazine.
As a representative of Comcast, Mr. Coblitz has served on the boards of Primestar Partners, Teleport Communications Group, Eastern TeleLogic Corporation, Faroudja Research and Polycipher and has been a board observer to VeriSign, TiVo and Internet Capital Group. He currently is a member of the Management Committee of Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).
Prior to joining Comcast in 1989, Mr. Coblitz was a consultant with Strategic Planning Associates, Washington, D.C. where he consulted on strategic issues in industries as varied as jet engines, financial services and textiles. He was a Captain in the United States Air Force serving at the Pentagon.
He holds a B.S. with honors in Management Science from Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) and is a distinguished graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now Tepper School of Business).
