Mike LaJoie, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president and chief technology and network operations officer, plans to retire at the end of the year, LaJoie told colleagues Friday in a memo that that was obtained by Multichannel News.
“As many of you know, I have been planning for quite some time to retire at the end of this year, after 21 years with TWC and following my 60th birthday. Recent events have made this decision more complicated, but after careful consideration, I intend to stay with that plan,” LaJoie wrote in the memo, later citing his mentor and friend, former TWC CEO Glenn Britt, who died of cancer Wednesday (June 11). “Thus, it is with mixed emotions that I am announcing my retirement, effective December 31. With so many wonderful experiences, a strong TechNO leadership team in place, and the upcoming merger with Comcast in the integration phase, the timing still seems right.”
LaJoie noted that his main focus for the rest of the year “will be the Comcast integration and ensuring an orderly transition of my TechNO operating responsibilities.”
LaJoie said he will retain oversight of TechNO (technology and network operations) through the end of June, and of TechNO development through the end of the third quarter. In October, he plans to “focus solely on the Comcast merger” and work with Jim Ludington, TWC’s EVP of national network operations and engineering for the MSO’s Advanced Technology Group, “to ensure a successful integration.”
LaJoie added that Hamid Heidary, previously the CTO of NTL and Insight Communications, has agreed to lead the TWC TechNO team as a consultant as LaJoie begins to transition his CTO duties in order to focus on the integration of TWC’s applications, network and physical infrastructure with Comcast.
Before his most recent appointment, LaJoie was TWC’s EVP and CTO, a position he assumed in January 2004. Before that, he was the MSO’s EVP of advanced technology, and served in the same capacity for TWC’s Time Warner Entertainment division. Among other posts during his career at Time Warner, he was VP of corporate development of TWE from 1998, and president of TWE’s broadband applications development group, starting in 1996.
After coming on board Warner Communications as a consultant in 1988, LaJoie’s official career with the company began in 1994, when Time Warner hired him as VP of software development in the Time Warner Interactive Group.
“It is hard to imagine where we would be today without Mike at the helm of our technology and network operations function. He is a true icon in this industry," Dinni Jain, TWC's chief operating officer, said in a statement.
LaJoie has served on the boards of directors of several organizations, including the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), SCTE Foundation, and Beaumaris Networks. In 2011, he was named to the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.
“Sadly, discussing my career with TWC without mentioning my dear friend, Glenn Britt, would be somehow incomplete. Glenn believed in me and was a great mentor for twenty years, and my thoughts are with his wife, Barbara, at this time,” LaJoie wrote to colleagues Friday.
