Comcast hires former Nike exec Satchell as product chief

After bumping product chief Charlie Herrin to the vitally needed customer service czar position in September, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) announced Wednesday that it has finally found a replacement for him to lead its product teams.

Satchell

The Philadelphia cable conglomerate has hired former Nike and Microsoft executive Chris Satchell as executive VP and chief product officer. Satchell will lead a Comcast product team spread across Philadelphia, Denver and Silicon Valley.

"Chris is a world-class technologist with a track record of creating products that consumers love," said Neil Smit, Comcast's president and CEO. "Chris and his team will work across the company to create, design and build exceptional product experiences for customers, and I am thrilled to have him on board."

Satchell was in charge of around 1,600 employees while leading Nike's Consumer Digital Technology Group, which introduced one of the first big wearables, the FuelBand fitness tracker--a product that was ultimately usurped in the market by rivals including FitBit and Jawbone. 

Prior to joining Nike, Satchell served as CTO for slot-machine and video gambling company IGT. He also served as CTO for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, and was responsible for product and technical development across multiple areas of the gaming business, including Xbox, Windows and Microsoft Game Studios.

Satchell will now lead a product team focused on development for Comcast's X1 video platform, which has performed well in customer homes but has been hamstrung a bit by slow deployment.

"Chris's depth of product development experience across a variety of leading technology companies makes him uniquely qualified to lead this important work," said Tony Werner, the company's executive VP and CTO. "There's never been a more exciting time for product innovation, and I look forward to continuing to build on the great foundation that our product team has established." 

For more:
- read this Comcast press release

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