Julian Brodsky, a co-founder of Comcast and its longtime chief financial officer, has died at 93. If you pay Comcast for cable TV or home internet, he helped build the company that sends you the bill.
Brodsky died Thursday, Nov. 5, the company announced. He was one of three partners, along with Ralph Roberts and Daniel Aaron, who built Comcast from a small cable TV system in Tupelo, Mississippi, bought in 1963. That one system grew into Philadelphia-based Comcast, now a telecommunications and media company with $124 billion in annual revenue. Brodsky was the last of the three founders still living.
Why it matters
As chief financial officer, Brodsky raised the money that let Comcast buy other cable systems and grow, and he helped bring the company to Wall Street in its 1972 stock offering. Comcast says he helped win over banks and investors who had doubted cable’s future.
He also started Comcast Interactive Capital in 1999, now called Comcast Ventures, to invest in young technology companies. He became Comcast’s non-executive vice chairman in 2004 and retired from the company and its board in 2011.
“Julian was an extraordinary leader, a brilliant financial mind, and one of the architects of cable television,” Comcast Chairman Brian L. Roberts said in a statement. Roberts said Brodsky “established a culture of financial integrity, uncompromising standards, and respect for colleagues that remains at the heart of our company today.”
A Philadelphia life
Brodsky was born in Philadelphia in 1933, went to Overbrook High School and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He worked as an accountant before joining Roberts in cable. He lived in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, for 42 years before moving back to Philadelphia two years ago, local reports say.
He was also a longtime supporter of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he served as a trustee for almost three decades. Last month, he and his wife, Lois, pledged $20 million to the museum for a learning center aimed in part at schoolchildren.
He is survived by Lois, his wife of 70 years; three daughters; four grandchildren; a brother; and a niece. A celebration of his life will be announced later.
JBizNews Desk | Philadelphia
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