David Reed, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for CableLabs, has resigned from the R&D consortium and will leave at the end of September, Multichannel News has learned.
Reed, who joined CableLabs in 1994, informed the MSO-owned company last week of his resignation after the board’s meeting in New York, industry sources confirmed. He will remain with CableLabs through the end of the month.
CableLabs did not immediately comment. Sources did not indicate what Reed may be planning to do post-CableLabs.
Reed’s departure comes after CableLabs named Phil McKinney, formerly CTO of HP’s personal systems group, as president and CEO in May. McKinney replaced Paul Liao, the former Panasonic CTO who had run the laboratory since June 2009. Liao cited “personal reasons” in announcing last fall that he would not renew his contract, which was set to expire this December.
At CableLabs, Reed has been responsible for leading R&D projects “of immediate interest to member companies.” He headed up development and strategy of CableLabs’ major programs, including DOCSIS, business services, advanced advertising, PacketCable and tru2way.
Reed was named chief strategy officer in March 2004. Prior to that, he was chief technical officer and senior vice president of strategic planning.
Before joining CableLabs, Reed served for three years at the Federal Communications Commission as a telecommunications policy analyst in the agency’s Office of Plans and Policy where he worked on video dial-tone, personal communications services (PCS) and spectrum-auction policies.
According to sources, McKinney is “rearranging the furniture” rather than looking to dramatically shake up CableLabs’ management team. Since taking over June 1, McKinney reversed a rule that Liao had instituted requiring managers to evaluate employees on a “bell curve,” a policy that was widely disliked within the company, sources said.
Louisville, Colo.-based CableLabs is owned by 40 cable operators in the U.S. and abroad. The company last year opened an office in San Francisco to try to work better with Silicon Valley technology companies, universities and investors.
