Sam Schwartz

At Comcast, Sam Schwartz has served in a number of innovation roles focused on delivering interactive products, building innovation teams, partnering with leading-edge companies, and overseeing Comcast's venture capital and Internet investments and acquisitions. He has frequently represented Comcast in the press and at conferences to discuss the evolution of business models in a multiscreen digital world, technology and content distribution. As Chief Development Officer of Comcast Cable, Sam oversees Comcast's Strategic Development Group in sourcing, building and developing strong partnerships and businesses that deliver the best products to consumers. Sam previously served as President of Comcast Converged Products where he led the strategic development of initiatives with key partners, including overseeing product development of the Comcast and Verizon Wireless innovation partnership to create new integrated wireline and wireless products and services. Sam also founded and led the team that developed the company's next-generation X1 product and platform that both significantly enhance Comcast's video service on the TV and extend it to other next-generation devices. Prior to this, he co-founded and served as Executive Vice President of Strategy & Development for Comcast Interactive Media (CIM), the division of Comcast Corporation founded to develop and operate online and cross-platform entertainment and media businesses, including Xfinity.net and XfinityTV.com (formerly Fancast.com). In that role, he oversaw CIM's acquisition and successful integration of Fandango.com, DailyCandy, Movies.com, thePlatform and Plaxo. As a co-founder of CIM, he played a key role in the industry's development of its TV Everywhere strategy, the creation and launch of Fancast.com, and the development of CIM's significant Web, strategy and engineering capabilities. Sam also is a Founding Partner of Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC), now Comcast Ventures, the venture capital fund affiliated with Comcast. He served as Senior Managing Partner, a role in which he grew the team, developed the investment strategy and oversaw investments in more than 100 venture-stage companies, in addition to serving on many of their Boards. In 2011, CIC combined with NBCUniversal and General Electric's Peacock Equity Fund to form Comcast Ventures. Prior to joining Comcast in March of 1999, Sam spent time as a venture capital investor in communications and software companies. Prior to his work in venture capital, he was a manager at The Boston Consulting Group and a consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Sam began his career as a software engineer. Sam holds a Master of Business Administration in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating as a Palmer Scholar, and received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering & Applied Science. Sam is married with three children and lives in Suburban Philadelphia.