Tom Rutledge

Title: COO, Cablevision

Years in Cable: 34

Education: BA, Economics, California University, California, PA

Why Him? Rutledge, a recipient of NCTA’s Vanguard Award for leadership, remains the ever-steady leader of a company in the midst of mass growth. On the heels of a whirlwind 2010, Cablevision had another busy year in 2011 with the launch of full programming service on the Optimum App for iPad, iPhone and iTouch—used on about 560,000 devices so far. The operator also continued to roll out its Optimum WiFi network and its remote-storage DVR product, DVR+.

Legal Eagle: Rutledge personally fought in the courts for several years for the deployment of DVR+, which already is available in New York City and Connecticut service areas and should see expansion in 2012.

Year Ahead: Rutledge—who will soldier on as his right-hand man John Bickham steps down at year-end—sees growth in small- and mid-sized businesses. Cablevision currently counts more small business customers than Verizon in its market, and the MSO doesn’t plan to let up. ?

(ONLINE UPDATE: Shortly after we went to press with the magazine, Rutledge left Cablevision to become CEO of Charter Communications).

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