Brian Roberts

Education: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Just when we think Roberts is at the top of his game, he manages to scale new heights in his tireless quest to grow the media behemoth that is Comcast. It’s the reason so many cable insiders consider him the best dealmaker in the business—and the reason we have stolen him from his usual lofty perch in the “Above It All” section and pulled him back into the Cablefax 100 trenches. Roberts not only oversaw the near-seamless combining of Comcast and NBCU resources into a dominant global media and technology firm generating $64.7 billion of revenue in 2013, but the success only made him hungry for more. His game-changing interference in Charter’s bid for Time Warner Cable, with a deal valued at $45 billion, practically prohibits any other company from stepping into the ring. Lawmakers will determine whether the deal will go through, but we’re certainly not betting against him.