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Comcast Net Sales: Burke has History of Building Businesses

Feb 14, 2005  •  Post A Comment

Stephen Burke, who grew up in upstate New York, has spent much of his career building different kinds of businesses and finding ways to make them pay off.

His training began early: He was the son of Daniel Burke, who built Capital Cities Communications and then took over the ABC Network.

After graduating from Colgate University and earning an MBA at Harvard Business School, Stephen Burke spent a dozen years at The Walt Disney Co. While there he helped establish what was then a successful chain of retail stores. He also led a restructuring of Euro Disney, which went from red ink to posting a profit.

He joined Comcast in 1998 and became involved in the integration of AT&T Broadband, which helped make Comcast the largest cable system operator in the United States. He was part of an unsuccessful effort to take over Disney and the successful purchase of an interest in MGM. Recently he has played a role in Comcast’s joint bid with Time Warner for the Adelphia cable TV assets as part of a stock swap.

Active in the cable industry, Mr. Burke serves as chairman of the executive committee of C-SPAN and is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Although he has been rumored to be among the candidates being considered to replace Michael Eisner at Disney, he vows he will not take over the top job at his former employer.

“I don’t want it,” Mr. Burke insisted. “I like where I am. I’ve got five kids and they are all in the same school. I drop them off every day. If I ever told them I was moving, they’d kill me. Plus, I love my job.”