Philadelphia — Derek Harrar,
Comcast’s senior vice president
and general manager of video
and entertainment services, has
resigned from the position, the
cable operator confirmed Friday.
Comcast has initiated a search
to replace Harrar, according to
spokeswoman Alana Davis. Currently,
Harrar is looking at other
opportunities within Comcast and
outside the company, she said.
Harrar did not respond to an email
last Friday (June 11) requesting
comment.
In May 2007 Comcast promoted
Harrar to senior vice president and
general manager of video services.
In that position, he was responsible
for all aspects of the company’s
video business, including basic
and digital cable subscriptions,
HD, video-on-demand and digital
video recorder services.
Harrar also had been leading
Comcast’s early efforts on 3DTV,
which included bringing The
Masters 3D telecast to subscribers,
and was instrumental in
the “Project Cavalry” rollout of
digital terminal adapters (DTAs)
that has allowed Comcast to
reclaim significant spectrum by
retiring dozens of analog video
channels.
Harrar joined Comcast in
2004 as vice president of business
development and was subsequently
named vice president
of subscriber equipment, and
later vice president of video
product management.
Prior to joining Comcast,
Harrar was vice president of business
development for Mega-
Sense, a venture-funded communications
startup in Silicon Valley.
Before that, he was an investment
banker for Morgan
Stanley in Silicon Valley and in
New York. At Morgan Stanley,
Harrar advised customers including
Hewlett-Packard, Grupo
Televisa, @Home, LSI Logic
and VeriSign on 45 announced
transactions aggregating more
than $60 billion.
