Mike LaJoie, the former EVP and CTO of Time Warner Cable, sure is staying busy for a retired guy.

LaJoie, who retired from TWC at the end of 2014, has been appointed to the board of directors of multiscreen video tech company Envivio. That announcement came just more than a month after LaJoie was named chairman of Guavus, the San Mateo-based Big Data analytics company.

Envivio also announced that Kevin Dillon, a general partner with Atlantic Bridge, has resigned from the board. 

Envivio makes video processing and transcoding products for multiscreen applications, including emerging 4K video services, and recently expanded its horizons with the launch of a virtual, cloud-based software-as-a-service video platform called “Nuage.” TWC is one of Envivio’s known U.S. MSO customers.

"Digitizing entertainment-quality video is a challenge that I have pursued for many years, LaJoie said in a statement. “This opportunity with Envivio will allow me to stay highly involved in that space. As the demand for quality improvements and enhanced functionality continues to expand, Envivio is well positioned to lead with innovative solutions and enhanced value creation. I am looking forward to working with the team."

"The board, management team and I wholeheartedly welcome Mike to the Board of Directors. We expect Mike to help accelerate our vision, contribute to our strategy, and deepen our relationships with cable operators and content owners, as we move aggressively into 2015," added Envivio chairman Terry D. Kramer.

Mike LaJoie retired as executive vice president and chief technology officer of Time Warner Cable at the end of 2014, but it's already clear in the early part of 2015 that he intends to stay in the cable technology picture. 

Guavus, a big data analytics company based in San Mateo, Calif., is expected to announce today (January 21) that LaJoie has joined the company’s board and will serve as chairman.

LaJoie is joining Guavus as the company continues to expand into new markets and looks to expand its presence in the cable industry, which is increasingly eager to use its data in ways that could open up new revenue streams while also reducing operating costs.

While Guavus has not identified its current crop of MSO customers, the vendor has been active in the cable industry for years. For example, Marwan Fawaz, an exec late of Charter Communications and the former head of Motorola Home and now a partner at Sarepta Partners, is a member of Guavus's panel of industry advisors.  According to Guavus’s website, David Nicholas, an exec late of cable-focused companies such as Alticast, BigBand Networks (now part of Arris), Vyyo, and Concurrent Computer Corp., is on board as senior vice president sales – cable and media. In 2013, Guavus acquired Pipeline, a product originally developed by Applied Broadband that collects and analyzes IPDR (Internet Protocol Detailed Records) from cable modem terminations systems (CMTSs). At the time, Guavus said Pipeline’s platform had been licensed by seven of the top 10 cable operators in North America.

“Guavus has become a trusted partner to the world’s largest communications companies that are looking to transition to being data-driven enterprises,” LaJoie said, in a statement. “Guavus has demonstrated great innovation and I look forward to contributing to its continued success as a member of the Guavus board.”

“We are extremely honored that Mike will be contributing to the vision and direction of Guavus at a time when data is becoming increasingly strategic to the future growth and operating success for our customers,” added Anukool Lakhina, the CEO and founder of Guavus. “Mike’s extensive management experience and proven operational expertise makes him a valuable addition to our board as we continue to grow and deliver a range of big data solutions that provide significant value to customers globally.”

Last June, LaJoie announced plans to retire from TWC on Dec. 31, 2014, following a 21-year career with the company, noting then that his main focus for the balance of 2014 would be on the Comcast integration.  

Guavus claims that its Reflex platform currently processes over 2.5 petabytes of data per day, equivalent to 250 billion records per day and 2.5 million transactions per second. Guavus feedds that data into applications that, for example, can be used to help ISPs line up pricing plans based on customer device usage, create targeted ad campaigns based on customer interests, and keep close tabs on network data traffic trends.

Founded in 2006, Guavus announced last August that it had raised a $20 million round, extending its total investment to more than $107 million. Investors in the most recent round included Artiman Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures, Intel Capital, SingTel Innov8, Investor Growth Capital, QuestMark Partners, TransLink Capital and Goldman Sachs.

A concentration on new cutting-edge cable technologies, an increased focus on education and the debut of several cable new exhibitors helped drive attendance at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers 2014 Cable-Tec Expo in Denver.

The annual technology fest, held from Sept.22-25, attracted about 9,100 attendees, the SCTE said in a statement. While that was below the 9,800 attendees to the 2013 gathering in Atlanta, a 22% increase in new exhibitors helped drive total booth takers to 376 and a pre-conference symposium on DOCSIS 3.1 and wireless technologies drew more than 500 attendees for the first time. Both the exhibitor and attendance totals represent increases over those registered in 2009, when Denver last played host to the event.

This year’s get-together also had a new focus on learning and education – the conference agenda included more than 100 hours of workshops and symposiums on three distinct tracks: Next-Generation Customer Experience; Next-Generation Video; and Next-Generation Networks.  A standing-room only crowd heard Comcast executive vice president and chief network officer John Schanz keynote the Energy 2020 session that unveiled cable’s plan to reduce energy consumption and assure energy availability by the end of the decade. The event also saw strong attendance at back-to-back sessions on DevOps, Agile Software Development and RDK.

Cable executives provided insights at the general sessions into how the industry is adapting to continue to improve the customer experience and maintain its competitive edge worldwide, and how engineering and operations professional can align their careers.  The sessions included opening remarks by Tony Werner, executive vice president and CTO of Comcast Cable Communications and the 2014 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Program Chair; a keynote presentation by Rob Lloyd, president, development and sales for Cisco Systems, Inc.; a panel on cloud technologies; a Werner conversation with Mike Fries, president and CEO of Liberty Global; and views on career growth from Yvette Kanouff, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider Video Software and Solutions Group, Cisco, and Mike LaJoie, executive vice president and CTO and chief network operations officer for Time Warner Cable.

“Despite unavoidable proximity to IBC and other industry events, the cable engineering community turned out in force to learn more about harnessing the new technologies that increase and ensure service availability,” said SCTE president and CEO Mark Dzuban in a statement.  “We’re grateful for the leadership of Tony Werner; the insights of Mike Fries, Rob Lloyd and our other speakers; the support of CableLabs at our DOCSIS 3.1 and Wireless symposium; and the technical resources of Comcast’s Denver Central operations. All of them—and many others—contributed to making SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2014 the most successful educational event in our history.”

SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2015 will be conducted Tuesday through Friday, Oct. 13-16 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Liberty Global executive vice president and CTO Balan Nair will serve as Program Committee chairman for the 2015 event.

There was no talk of OFDM, or DOCSIS 3.1, or WiFi, or any of the hard-core tech fare that typically characterizes an SCTE Cable-Tec Expo general session, when Time Warner Cable chief technology officer Mike LaJoie sat down Wednesday with his friend and former colleague Yvette Kanouff, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Service Provider group.

Instead, it was a look into the life and driving philosophies of the outgoing CTO, who will retire from the MSO at the end of this year.

The camaraderie between the two, who first worked together at the Full Service Network effort in the ’90s, contributed to an alternately witty and wise discussion.

Highlights and key quips:

• LaJoie partipates on a 5:30 a.m. phone call with a few male friends, every day. The intent: To coach each other on how to be better people. “It’s something we’ve been doing for a long time. That clarity has been working on me.”

• His area of desired improvement: Kindness. “As hokey as that sounds, having a higher purpose is so important to me. I’m not as kind as I should be,” he said, to much audience chortling. “Some of you out there know that I can be a little gruff.”

• LaJoie doesn’t view his working life through the lens of “career progression,” but rather as a quest to “work on the bleeding edge of technology with leading-edge people.”

• Tip: Business alignment matters to a successful career. LaJoie, who once worked as a stockbroker, urged attendees to understand how finances work. “You have to take time to know how to read an income statement, what a balance sheet is, and establish how to contribute” to a company’s business goals.

• Also: Communicate well. “I can’t tell you how important it is to speak in language that other people understand.”

• And: Have fun. “If it isn’t fun, make it fun. If you can’t make it fun, go somewhere else.”

Mike Hayashi, a long-time engineering executive with Time Warner Cable who has played an important role in the development of key cable technologies and services, announced that he will retire from the operator by the end of the year.

Hayashi, TWC’s Denver-based executive vice president, architecture, development and engineering, informed colleagues of his decision to retire via internal memos distributed last week.

Hayashi’s coming departure comes as TWC, the nation’s second-largest cable operator, is in the process of being acquired by Comcast, and was announced a little more than three months after Mike LaJoie, TWC’s executive vice president and chief technology and network operations officer, announced that he plans to retire at the end of 2014.

Hayashi, a 36-year cable vet and advanced video pioneer, joined TWC 22 years ago following the merger of ATC and Warner Cable. During his career at TWC, Hayashi has been a force in the development and deployment of next-gen cable services, including advanced analog, digital video, cable telephony, and video-on-demand, and has also been instrumental in the development of CableLabs-led initiatives such as OpenCable.

Hayashi told colleagues that he has “every bit of confidence in the succession organization I’ve put in place,” noting that Howard Pfeffer, TWC’s senior vice president of broadband technology; and Matt Zelesko, senior vice president of TWC’s Converged Technology Group, “will continue to lead a team of world-class developers and architects.”

“When I joined TWC, my goal was to return to technology development within three years so that I could contribute to the creation of a better set-top box. As it turns out, I’m about 19 years late on fulfilling that goal,” Hayashi told colleagues.  

Hayashi also left the door open on where he might go next. “I love this business. I always will,” he wrote. “While I don’t have any concrete plans at the moment, I will continue to stay connected to the industry and keep my options open. And, through my last day with TWC on December 31, 2014, I remain committed to helping with merger integration efforts.”

“Mike plans to stay active in the cable industry post-retirement, and I look forward to seeing how he’ll continue to change it for the better,” LaJoie said in a separate internal announcement. “I’m honored to have worked with Mike over the years and I feel lucky to have had a front-row seat to his impressive career.”

Hayashi, a graduate of St. Joseph College in in Yokohama, Japan, and Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., started his cable career at Pioneer Communications of America as staff engineer for Warner Cable’s pioneering Qube project. He later joined Scientific-Atlanta (now part of Cisco), where he developed requirements for the first integrated electronic program guide and helped the company enter international markets such as the United Kingdom and Japan.

Word of Hayashi's coming retirement comes as thousands of cable engineers gather in Denver this week for the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo.

Multichannel News has asked TWC for further comment and will update this story accordingly.

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.