Comcast Chief Technology Officer Sree Kotay Quits After 10 Years With Cable Operator

Sree Kotay has left Comcast Cable, where he had worked for 10 years and most recently served as chief technology officer.

Kotay is leaving for “personal reasons,” a Comcast spokewoman said, confirming an earlier report by Multichannel News. The Comcast rep declined to elaborate. The move comes three weeks after Comcast Cable named Dave Watson, formerly COO of the division, as president and CEO to take over for Neil Smit.

Comcast Cable’s top tech exec remains Tony Werner, president of technology and product, who had held the CTO role before Kotay was named to the post in May 2016. Under Kotay’s leadership, Comcast says it completed major technology and product projects including the launch and scale of the X1 advanced user interface and set-top.

Kotay joined Comcast in 2007 as chief software architect and later was elevated to executive VP of technology design and development.

As CTO, Kotay led Comcast’s software and technology strategy, responsible for the engineering and operations of the operator’s customer-facing products and services. He also oversaw the Comcast Innovation Labs R&D team, as well as security and software assurance practices across all aspects of product development.

Previously he was AOL’s senior VP of technology, leading desktop client software, mail services, instant messaging, and other product areas. Before joining AOL in 2003, Kotay was a co-founder and CTO for Viewpoint, a software company focused on media advertising and advanced 2D/3D and motion graphics technology. Earlier in his career, he worked as director of R&D for Metacreations/HSC Software, a pro-sumer digital arts tools software firm, and was president and founder of Intrepid Systems, a high-end printing and publishing solutions company.

Separately, Comcast Cable last month hired Euan McLeod, previously global head of live video at Amazon.com, as VP of IP video engineering.

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